Research Guide:
REL 60: Seminar on Asian Religions
Fall 2006
Sources for Background Information:
Check these for both overviews and recommended bibliographies. Be sure to use the index to find information on your particular interest.
Encyclopedia of religion, 2005.
Cornell 200.321 E56e
Encyclopedia of Buddhism, 2004.
Cornell 994.303 E56e
ATLAS Religion Index
The primary database in religion and theology, indexing both journal articles and books. In "Advanced search," enter your subject. Use the truncation symbol, *, to ask the database to find word beginning with the letters you enter: "tibet*" will retrieve "tibetan" as well as "tibet," "femini*" will retrieve "feminine," "feminist" or "feminism".
Here is a sample search in ATLA that retrieved almost sixty articles:
After you get a listing of items, click on each entry's 
button. If we do not have electronic access to the item, scroll down the new window to "Additional options" and click on "Search the catalog by journal title" (which will also work for book titles).
A more complete guide to ATLAS is available at depts.drew.edu/lib/guides/atla/.
Bibliography of Asian Studies
This indexes published materials (both books and journals). After clicking "Search," select "Advanced Search" from the top toolbar. Generally, opt to search the entire record, rather than narrowing your search to "subject". NOTE: do not enter multiple terms for a topic in a single search. If you want information on Tibetan Buddhist women, do separate searches for women, for nuns, or for femini*. Truncation does work, but the operator "or" does not.
Search example:
To find out if we own or have access to a specific journal, check for the title of the journal (not the title of the article) in:
Anthropological Literature
This index looks at material in anthropology, and is stronger in ritual and cultural customs than in the interpretation of religious thought. Like BAS, it is rather rigid in its search possibilities. When you enter the database, click on "Advanced Search," which is marginally more flexible. Use a question mark to search for words beginning with the letters you enter: monast? or tibet?
After you get a listing of items, click on each entry's button. If we do not have electronic access to the item, scroll down the new window to "Additional options" and click on "Search the catalog by journal title" (which will also work for book titles).
START NOW! you may need to use Inter-Library Loan to retrieve material!
WorldCat
This is the combined catalog of over 20,000 libraries. Use WorldCat if you're not finding anything in the Drew catalog. START NOW!
Finding Information on the Public Web:
There are many sites on religion on the web, but many of them are somewhat problematic. To go to the most reliable sites, use the recommendations for "World Religions" on Drew Library's Religion and Theology page.
Virtual Religion: Buddhist Studies (http://www.virtualreligion.net/vri/buddha.html) is a metasite that suggests a number of more specific websites.
Tibetan Buddhism Archives (http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/tib/index.htm) collects sacred texts.
Buddhist Studies WWW Virtual Library (http://www.ciolek.com/WWWVL-Buddhism.html), a frequently-updated site edited by scholars.
For more specific sites, use a search engine such as Google or Yahoo. Remember that in Google, there is no truncation symbol, but you can use "or" by capitalizing both letters:
Be cautious: the quality and reliability of public websites varies wildly.
Questions?
| For general questions: | Call 3588 email reference@drew.edu Contact Q&A/NJ, a 24/7 chat reference service |
| For more detailed help: | Contact Jody Caldwell, 973-408-3481 |