BASIC RESEARCH TOOLS
RECOMMENDED DATABASES
RECOMMENDED REFERENCE EBOOKS
Chicago Manual of Style Online
- Falvey’s short introduction and overview to the Chicago-Style Notes and Bibliography System which is most commonly used in the humanities.
- Notes and Bibliography: Sample Citations (Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide)
- Notes and Bibliography Chapter: Table of Contents
- Author-Date References: Sample Citations (Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide)
- Author-Date References Chapter: Table of Contents
- The Chicago Manual of Style Online: Table of Contents
- Citing Catholic Church Documents in Chicago Style (Sample Citations for Notes and Bibliography and Author-Date systems)
featured ONLINE resources
- Acta Sanctorum (ProQuest)
- Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries
- Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary
- Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie Ecclésiastiques (DHGE) online
- Encyclopedia of Islam, 3rd ed.
- Encyclopedia of Religious Ethics
- Flavius Josephus Online
- Index Buddhicus
- Index Islamicus
- Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century
- New Collegeville Bible Commentary
- Patrologia Latina (ProQuest)
- Patrologia Orientalis Database (Brepols)
- Sources Chrétiennes Online (Brepols)
Some subject-specific online resources



Provides encyclopedia articles on the global history of the Catholic Church, with entries primarily in French on people, places, and institutions from antiquity to the present day.

Provides extensive facts and a detailed overview of Judaism, Jewish life and the contribution of Jews to world cultures from ancient to modern times. Source published in 2007. Online access via Gale Virtual Reference Library.


Covers a wealth of topics on the ethics of health professions, animal research, population control and the environment. This work helps researchers to consider the impact of new scientific knowledge and its potential to harm or benefit present and future generations.

Examines the philosophical and ethical issues underlying contemporary and historical environmental issues, policies, and debates. Covers concepts, institutions, topics, events and people, including global warming, animal rights, environmental movements, alternative energy, green chemistry, industrial ecology, and eco-sabotage.


The Encyclopedia contains more than 2,100 entries including 1,000 biographical entries on major figures in philosophical thought throughout history.. Among the many topics covered are African, Islamic, Jewish, Russian, Chinese, and Buddhist philosophies; bioethics and biomedical ethics; art and aesthetics; epistemology; metaphysics; peace and war; social and political philosophy; the Holocaust; feminist thought; and much more.



Contains the most current state of knowledge on the origins and development of the Bible in the canons within Judaism and Christianity. It documents the history of biblical reception, not only in Christian churches and the Jewish Diaspora, but also in Islam, other non-Western religious traditions and movements. Source originally published 2010 and continuously updated. Online access via De Gruyter.

Provides a country-by-country analysis of over 175 nations and their approach to human rights, followed by detailed examinations of topics such as torture, slavery, asylum, genocide, hostages, indigenous peoples, freedom of the press, and the right to education.

Explores many branches of knowledge with an emphasis on the Catholic worldview, the practices, places and personalities of Catholicism, the teachings of the Catholic Church, as well as topical articles on the Bible, theology, ethics, and philosophy. Content is from the revised New Catholic Encyclopedia, and includes entries from supplemental volumes. Online access via Gale Virtual Reference Library.


Electronic access to Brill´s New Pauly, Der Neue Pauly, and their supplements.

With more than 5,000 entries by an international group of eminent historians, this is the standard research tool on 1,100 years of Byzantine history. Exhaustive in its coverage, entries on patriarchy and emperors coexist with entries on surgery, musical instruments, and the baking of bread, bringing to life this vastly important culture and empire, from the 4th century to the 15th.


Covers ancient Egyptian civilization, from the predynastic era to its eclipse in the seventh century CE.

Offers a comprehensive overview of the major cultures of the classical Mediterranean world -- Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman -- from the Bronze Age to the fifth century CE. It also covers the legacy of the classical world and its interpretation and influence in subsequent centuries.

A definitive source for information about the entire range of religious and social changes that altered the face of Europe in the sixteenth century, encompassing not only issues of church polity and theology but also developments in politics, economics, demographics, art and literature.

A comprehensive encyclopaedia of interdisciplinary research by international scholars into different aspects of both confrontation and interaction between Christians, Jews and "pagans" in antiquity and into the complex processes that mark the transformation of late antique culture until the seventh century. Online tools related to RAC are on the F.J. Doelger-Institut Website.


A modern specialist encyclopedia comprising 36 volumes of text (published 1976–2004) representing the present state of theological research as a whole. TRE treats the whole range of ecclesiastical and theological subjects from an ecumenical and international perspective; it deals with faith and thought, theology and church, acknowledgement and, if possible, understanding, beyond the boundaries of Christianity. Thus, in addition to the disciplines of the Old and New Testaments, church history, systematic and practical theology, the work also integrates Jewish studies, religious studies and philosophy – or rather, sees them as integral to theological study. Besides an exact reproduction of the complete text, the online version presents all the illustrations, maps, graphics and tables included in the printed volumes. A comprehensive search engine allows detailed researches which extend the bounds set by the systematic referencing of the two volumes of the overall index (published 2006 and 2007).

Features comprehensive descriptions of all Christian traditions, including current information on the uniqueness of Christian experiences around the world. It contains estimates for religious and nonreligious affiliation in every country of the world, including detail on Christianity to the denominational level. Source is the 3rd edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia published in 2019. Online access via Brill Online.
Some reference resources in the library
Anchor Bible Dictionary
Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity
Brill's encyclopedia of Hinduism
Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity
Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition
Dictionary of historical theology
Encyclopedia of American Social Movements
Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism
Encyclopedia of Catholic devotions and practices
Encyclopedia of Catholic social thought, social science, and social policy
Encyclopedia of Christianity
Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States
Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity
Encyclopedia of fundamentalism
Encyclopedia of mission and missionaries
Encyclopedia of monasticism
Encyclopedia of religious and philosophical writings in late antiquity: pagan, Judaic, Christian
Hispanic American religious cultures
New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship
New dictionary of saints : east and west
Religion Past & Present: Encyclopedia of Theology and Religion
Sacramentum mundi: an encyclopedia of theology
The Blackwell encyclopedia of modern Christian thought
The Coptic encyclopedia
The concise encyclopedia of the ethics of new technologies
The encyclopaedia of missions : descriptive, historical, biographical, statistical
Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization
Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature
Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity
Brill's encyclopedia of Hinduism
Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity
Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition
Dictionary of historical theology
Encyclopedia of American Social Movements
Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism
Encyclopedia of Catholic devotions and practices
Encyclopedia of Catholic social thought, social science, and social policy
Encyclopedia of Christianity
Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States
Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity
Encyclopedia of fundamentalism
Encyclopedia of mission and missionaries
Encyclopedia of monasticism
Encyclopedia of religious and philosophical writings in late antiquity: pagan, Judaic, Christian
Hispanic American religious cultures
New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship
New dictionary of saints : east and west
Religion Past & Present: Encyclopedia of Theology and Religion
Sacramentum mundi: an encyclopedia of theology
The Blackwell encyclopedia of modern Christian thought
The Coptic encyclopedia
The concise encyclopedia of the ethics of new technologies
The encyclopaedia of missions : descriptive, historical, biographical, statistical
Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization
Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature
Digital text collections

Features digital copies of the American Theological Library Association's historical monograph collection. Covers topics such as church life, doctrinal disputes, Judeo-Christian religions, non-Western religions, and social movements and reflects religious thought and practice in the Western world up to the 19th century.

Features digital copies of the American Theological Library Association's historical monograph collection. Covers topics such as church life, doctrinal disputes, Judeo-Christian religions, non-Western religions, and social movements and reflects religious thought and practice in the Western world from the late 19th to the early 20th century.

Provides open access to selected U.S. Catholic newspapers from the early 19th century to the late 20th century.
A tutorial for this resource can be found at: https://vums-web.villanova.edu/Mediasite/FileServer/2fa71667-5d89-4131-b70d-d2cac9fa99c1/Presentation/6d5423cdf44042dcba9866efc7d1d8451d/videopodcast.mp4

Online compilation of the works of theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) including: The Church Dogmatics in English with the original Die kirchliche Dogmatik; the 43 volumes of Barth's Gesamtausgabe; some additional works in German; and English translations of specific texts, with new content added quarterly.

via the Vatican Web Site

Features most of the books, pamphlets, and broadsides printed in America between 1639 and 1800. Titles were selected based on Charles Evans's American Bibliography.

Features most of the books, pamphlets, and broadsides published in America from 1801 through 1819. Contains many state papers and government reports. Titles were selected based on Ralph Shaw's and Richard H. Shoemaker's American Bibliography.

Provides access to digital page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473 to 1700. Includes books, pamphlets, manuscripts, and newspapers. For searchable text of selected titles see Early English Books Online -Text Creation Partnership.
A tutorial for this resource can be found at: https://proquest.libguides.com/eebopqp

Offers full text access to nearly every English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom, alongside thousands of works published in the Americas, between 1701 and 1800. Consists of books, pamphlets, broadsides, and ephemera. Multiple editions of individual works are offered where they add scholarly value or contain important differences.

Provides full text access to digital copies of books, pamphlets, and journals available in the public domain. Most of the freely available texts are pre-1923 imprints and government documents. Also allows full-text searching of millions of publications that are still under copyright in order to aid discovery of relevant materials. The Hathi Trust collection largely mirrors content available through Google Books, but only the latter platform permits the exports of public domain content.

Offers online access to authoritative editions of Greek and Latin texts. English translations appear on facing pages, following the format of the print editions. The collection is searchable in English and in the original language. Also available in print.

Contains selected full text of scholarly editions of many philosophers, theologians and literary writers: Anselm, Aquinas, Aristotle, Augustine, Austen, Chesterton, Descartes, Dewey, Feuerbach, Fichte, Foucault, Francis of Assisi, Hegel, Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard, Leibniz, Locke, Luther, Machiavelli, Marx and Engels, Merleau-Ponty, Montesquieu, Newman, Nietzsche, Ockham, Pascal, Peirce, Plato, Poinsot, Royce, Santayana, Schopenhauer, Shelley, Spinoza, Synge, Wittgenstein and Wollstonecraft, as well as collections for British Philosophy 1600-1900, The Continental Rationalists, The Latin Background: 1100-1550, and The Romantic Age.

Offers digital access to books, pamphlets, serials, and other sources published worldwide from 1500 to the early 20th century and documenting the history of the Americas. Titles were selected based on Joseph Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana.
Current news and opinion

Provides access to scholarly journals, dissertations, working papers, key business and economics periodicals, and country- and industry-focused reports.

Provides full text access to national and international newspaper articles and radio and television news transcripts. Many newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, offer full-image “page view” format. Includes user-friendly subject browse feature, as well as full text searchability. Coverage varies.
A tutorial for this resource can be found at: https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/sites/default/files/assets/newsbank-help-documentation.pdf

a service of the Chronicle of Higher Education

Visit BBC News for up-to-the-minute news, breaking news, video, audio and feature stories. BBC News provides trusted World and UK news as well as local and regional perspectives. Also entertainment, business, science, technology and health news.

U.S. Catholic news agengy

Eternal Word Television Network - Vatican and Catholic world news.

Offers access to the full text of articles from newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic, minority, and native press. While most of the content is in English, some content in non-English languages is included. Coverage for most newspapers and magazines goes back to the early 1990s, but earlier content is also available.

Online newspapers from around the world.

Offers access to all sections of the NYTimes.com website without monthly limits. Coverage from 1851 to present, with limited availability of articles from 1923-1980. For full text access to all NYT content except the most recent five years, use ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Subscription courtesy of the Provost's Office and Falvey Library.
Subscription courtesy of the Provost's Office and Falvey Library.
Users are required to create an individual account in order to access the NYT from off-campus or via mobile app. Create your account at AccessNYT.com. Download mobile apps from nytimes.com/mobile. Once your account is created, you can use it to log on to NYTimes.com from anywhere with full access. Your institutional affiliation must be confirmed once a year at AccessNYT.com

Formerly known as LexisNexis Academic. Provides full text access to national and international newspaper and magazine articles and news transcripts, business, company, and industry information in the U.S. and abroad, and legal documents, including U.S. Federal and State court cases, and law reviews. Coverage varies.
Limitations on Use:
LexisNexis online services and the materials contained therein are under copyright by LexisNexis. All rights reserved. No part of these Services may be used except for research purposes, and the Services may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the LexisNexis Academic Library Solutions. Materials retrieved from the Services may not be duplicated in hard copy or machine-readable form without the prior written authorization of LexisNexis Academic & Library Solutions, except that limited reproduction of output is permitted solely for individual use by the Authorized User or internal distribution within the Subscribing Institution in accordance with the terms of this Agreement unless further limited or prohibited by the Copyright Act of 1976. Under no circumstances may the Materials or any portion thereof be used to create derivative products or services.
LexisNexis online services and the materials contained therein are under copyright by LexisNexis. All rights reserved. No part of these Services may be used except for research purposes, and the Services may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the LexisNexis Academic Library Solutions. Materials retrieved from the Services may not be duplicated in hard copy or machine-readable form without the prior written authorization of LexisNexis Academic & Library Solutions, except that limited reproduction of output is permitted solely for individual use by the Authorized User or internal distribution within the Subscribing Institution in accordance with the terms of this Agreement unless further limited or prohibited by the Copyright Act of 1976. Under no circumstances may the Materials or any portion thereof be used to create derivative products or services.

Features electronic archives for selected journals of opinion, including Commonweal, Dissent, The New Leader, The Progressive, Orion, American Spectator and The Weekly Standard.

Provides full text access to articles published since 1981. Does not include ads, calendar listings, horoscopes, sports statistics, stock tables, weather forecasts, and puzzles.

Independent Website with writing on critical and timely issues at the intersection of religion, politics and culture.

Data & statistics

The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) strives to democratize access to the best data on religion


The Catholic GIS Center is simple: it is a community infrastructure for data, providing systems of engagement and systems of records for the global Catholic community.

Launched in 2001 as the Pew Hispanic Center, the project seeks to improve public understanding of the diverse Hispanic population in the United States and to chronicle Latinos' growing impact on the nation. The project conducts public opinion surveys, publishes demographic studies and other social science research and is well-known for its estimates of the unauthorized immigrant population in the U.S.


Independent research on the social impact of the internet.


Allows download of public surveys conducted on politics, religion, demographics, housing, relationships, work and many other topics.

The Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project conducts public opinion surveys around the world on a broad array of subjects ranging from people's assessments of their own lives to their views about the current state of the world and important issues of the day. Nearly 300,000 interviews in 59 countries have been conducted as part of the project's work.

Provides comprehensive statistical information on Christians and denominations world-wide.

Contains detailed information on global religious affiliation; including census, survey and projection data.

statistics and religious geography citations for world religions
Various freely available Web resources

The Catholic Research Resources Portal, or "Catholic Portal," provides access to rare, unique and/or uncommon materials in libraries, seminaries, special collections and archives. By electronically bringing together resources in many formats from many collections, the Portal enables easy, effective and global discovery of Catholic research resources.

Copyright © 1990 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.

"From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians" is a PBS/FRONTLINE series on new and controversial historical evidence which challenges familiar assumptions about the life of Jesus and the epic rise of Christianity.

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Indexes, describes, and selectively presents medieval art objects with a focus on Christian iconography. Also includes Jewish, Islamic, and non-ecclesiastical subjects. Records include descriptive information, provenance, location and ownership information, bibliographical references, and, when available, a photographic reproduction of the work of art. Formerly known as Index of Christian Art.

From the University of Queensland, Brisbane, a online publication devoted to analysing and critiquing media and culture.

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