Subject Guide to Religion

Back to Guides

If you need help, don't hesitate to ask at the reference desk, or contact Reference Librarians Linda Moore or Mark Maier.

Try these encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference guides to get started. Click on the link to see the call number.
1. Dictionaries:
 The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions  An Online Resource, to access, click here.
 The Oxford dictionary of world religions   Ref BL 31.O9 1997.
2. Encyclopedias:
  Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and  Practices
  Ref BL80.3 R45 2002 (vols. 1, 2, & 3)
  The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Active New Religions, Sects, and Cults
  Ref BL80.2 .B385 1993
3. Bibliography:
  Critical Reviews of Books in Religion   Ref BL10 .C74 (1988-1997)
4. Research and Terminology Guides:
  Research guide to religious studies  Ref BL41 .W5 1982
 Critical terms for religious studies  Ref BL31 .C75 1998
5. Citing Sources:
  For Turabian formats see this website
 For MLA format see MLA Style Manual  Ref PN 147 .G444 1998

Moving to the next step: finding books
1. To find books in the Mossey Library, use the Mossey Library Catalog.
2. Use MeLCat to request books and audio-visual materials directly from other Michigan libraries over the web. Use OCLC World Cat to search the holdings of over 3000 libraries worldwide in a single search. You will have to use interlibrary loan to obtain copies of these books.

Continuing on: the best places to find articles
Articlefirst: Indexes of articles from the content pages of journals.
Blackwell: Over 700 journals covering a wide range of subject areas, including international peer-reviewed titles, many published on behalf of scholarly and professional societies.
Academic Onefile: Offers full-text, peer-reviewed articles from leading journals around the world.
ATLAReligion: Offers access to religious and theological literature.
Firstsearch: A collection of over 60 databases from OCLC.
JSTOR: This database provides full-text coverage of more than 64 major language and literature journals. The journals have been digitized from their first volume. Each year another volume of recent issues is added to the collection.
Cambridge Collections Online: A full-text collection of over 250 titles covering literature, classics, philosophy, religion and cultural studies and includes Shakespeare Survey Online.

Scholarly Websites:
Religion Online: Offers full-text articles and data on varying religious subjects.
Thearda: The American Religious Data Archive provides up to date statistics and data on religion.

Link to the Hillsdale College Religion Department