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**Navigating Databases**: ATLA

Easy to follow tutorials on using different database platforms.

What's ATLA?

CTS subscribes to a number of different products from ATLA (American Theological Library Association).

The ATLASerials is one of the key databases at CTS for finding full-text journal and book articles as well as book reviews on religion or theology subjects.

In addition, CTS subscribes to ATLA's New Testament Abstracts, Old Testament Abstracts and ATLA Catholic Periodical and Literature Index.

ATLA Super Search will allow you to search across all of these products, including EBSCO's Jewish Studies Source.

Scripture Searching

To search for ATLA articles or citations that include your Bible verse selection:

  1. Go to ATLA Super Search.
  2. Under More at the top, Select Scriptures ⇒ ATLA Hierarchical Scripture Authority ⇒Select Book you wish to find articles for.
  3. Locate the biblical book and click on the Expand button.
  4. Find your chapter and click on Expand.
  5. Click on the verse.
  6. This will find articles covering that verse or a range of verses including that verse. OR
  7. Under More at the top, Select Scriptures ⇒ Old Testament (excluding Deuterocanonical books) OR
  8. Under More at the top, Select Scriptures ⇒ New Testament books are listed in canonical order. Select needed verse range.
  1. Go to ATLA Super Search.
  2. Under More at the top, Select Indexes ⇒ Select one of the Indexes
  3. From the drop-down menu beside Browse an Index, select Scripture Citation (ATLA database) OR Scripture Reference (CPLI or NT/OT Abstracts databases)
  4. In the Browse For search box, enter your biblical reference term (i.e. Romans 8:1-4)
  5. Use the Previous/Next buttons to move through the list to check the boxes by any relevant verses or ranges of verses. (Verses will not be listed in exact numerical order but in 1, 10-19, 2, 20-29 3, 30-39, etc).
  6. Select the verses you wish to search, and click on the Add button below the Browse For search bar.
  7. Click Search.
  8. This will find articles on the specific verses or ranges of verses you selected
 
Use this approach to search for all scholarly articles assigned one of the authorized biblical books subject headings in the ATLA Religion Database.
  1. Under More at the top, Select Indexes ⇒ ATLA Religion Database with ATLA Serials
  2. From the drop-down menu beside Browse an Index, select Subjects All
  3. In Browse For search box, enter Bible. Name of Biblical Book (i.e Bible. Romans) You must include the period after Bible.
  4. Scroll through the list and select the topics that are relevant to your search.
  5. Click on the Add button below the Browse For search box.
  6. You can narrow results by date, source type, subject etc. in the left column or by adding a second search term in the search box (i.e (Bible.Romans) and Spirit)

NOTE: How to access the scripture tool has slightly changed from what is displayed in this tutorial.

Follow the initial two steps in the ATLA Hierachical Scripture Authority, the remaining steps in the tutorial remain the same.

  1. Login to ATLAS for Alumni
  2. At the top of the screen Select Scriptures
  3. Locate the biblical book and click on the Expand button.
  4. Find your chapter and click on Expand.
  5. Click on the verse.
  6. This will find articles covering that verse or a range of verses including that verse.