Research in Biblical Studies, part 1: where we're at

When it comes to researching- finding the right articles, essays, and books- we've come a long way. Gone are the days of flipping through the card catalogues to find stuff. Libraries have awesome web catalogues that are integrated with the rest of the world via WorldCat. What's more, most disciplines have one or more indexes complete with keywords ad perhaps abstracts to help you find the right articles for your needs. The cream of the crop is undoubtedly in the hard sciences, particularly PubMed.

We in Biblical studies are blessed to have numerous indexes and other sites to assist us in finding the relevant material for our needs. In no particular order, here they are:

American Theological Library Association Serials (ATLA)

Biblical Bibliography of Lausanne (BiBiL)

Index Theologicus

Documentation for biblical literature Innsbruck (BILDI)

Index of Articles on Jewish Studies (RAMBI)

Many journals now supply abstracts with the articles. In addition, we have 3 suppliers of abstracts:

NT Abstracts

OT Abstracts

Religious and Theological Abstracts

In addition to that we have numerous sites that act like article gateways, collecting articles in biblical studies for open access. While there are a few of these site, the largest is undoubtedly Biblical Studies.org.uk.

In addition to that, we have numerous journals which are available freely online. Some, like Bulletin of Biblical Research, have a 3-year (or so) lag and then the articles are placed here. Others, like the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, is purely an online journal and so obviously available and published solely online. A great list of journals in biblical studies, including which are online and which are not, is available both at Tyndale House and BILDI.

Beyond these there yet others- both Google Scholar and even deinde's own Journal Search have helped me find material that I didn't find elsewhere.

Going beyond articles, we now have some incredible access to books online. Google Book Search has become an indispensable resource for me personally. Archive.org is another storehouse. There are sites like Perseus, ETANA and Abzu, and book lists like the one on deinde that catalog thousands of great books available online.

I say it again, we are pretty blessed in Biblical Studies. There is lots out there and available online. Searching for and finding relevant secondary literature is faster than it has ever been, and more is immediately available to the researcher directly from the internet (articles and books, etc) than ever before.

Could it get any better? Well yes, I think it can. I'll tell you more in part 2 on some of the problems with the current state of affairs.