Finding Books and Journal Articles on the Web

I remember how grateful I was when Andrew Clarke (the then Librarian at Tyndale House) did an ATLA bibliographic search for me. He was also willing to photocopy the odd article.
My church was far away from a good theological library and without this help, research would have been very difficult.
We now provide this as a service, with the help of students at Tyndale House. The charges are reasonable - they cover the costs and recompense whichever student does the work. Details below.
There are also many other ways of finding books and articles on the web. Most are free.

1. SEARCHING FOR BOOKS
2. SEARCHING FOR JOURNAL ARTICLES - including the Tyndale ATLA search service
3. SEARCHING FOR THESES
4. GETTING HOLD OF THE TEXT - including the Tyndale Photocopy service.

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SEARCHING FOR BOOKS
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Online library catalogues are the best source of details about books.
But sometimes the better bookshop catalogues are more useful than libraries, because they are
more tolerant of spelling mistakes and sometimes suggest useful related titles.
The Library of Congress Catalogue
- http://catalog.loc.gov/
The British Library Catalogue
- http://opac97.bl.uk/
Tubingen Library (useful for foreign theological works)
- http://opac.ub.uni-tuebingen.de/olix_.html
WebCat lists all the online library catalogues
- http://library.usask.ca/hywebcat/geographic.html
Amazon - now finds out-of-print books as well
- http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ats-query-page/
(hint: searching at amazon.com is better than amazon.co.uk)
Bibliofind - searches thousands of second-hand bookshops. Now owned by Amazon.
- http://www.bibliofind.com/cgi-bin/texis.exe/s/search
More catalogues and bookshops are listed on the Tyndale site
- http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/links_books.html

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SEARCHING FOR JOURNAL ARTICLES
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There are a few free services, though none match the comprehensiveness of ATLA.
THEOLDI Theological articles from journals and festschriften. German.
- http://starwww.uibk.ac.at/theologie/theologie-en.html
Use the Keywords at http://starwww.uibk.ac.at/theologie/bibsw0.html
GNOMON Classics articles from 1997. A cut-down version of their CD.
- http://www.gnomon.ku-eichstaett.de/Gnomon/en/Gnomon.html
ANRW - the full contents of all the volumes of ANRW
with a one-stop search of other bibliographies at the bottom of the page
- http://www.uky.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/~scaife/anrw?*
NORTHERN LIGHTS - abstracts of a huge range of journals
Select "Special Collection" at http://www.northernlight.com/power.html
Journals are listed at http://www.northernlight.com/docs/specoll_help_catlook_humanities.html#cat
They include Biblical Archaeology Review, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Harvard Theological Review,
Journal of Biblical Literature and very many more theological titles.
ATHENS - subscription only. For Cambridge ID, email Michael Wilson <mlw1003@cam.ac.uk>
- Creates an Alert List of journals you are interested in. They email contents when published.
- Covers about 300 journals in Religion (including the Tyndale Bulletin) back till 1993
ATLA - the American Theological Library Association database.
This is the best. It covers about 500 journals and 500 collections of essays every year.
But it is expensive to subscribe to the CD or online version.
If you are in Cambridge, use http://webspirs.cam.ac.uk/
or use the CD at Tyndale House, which has more search parameters.
LET TYNDALE SEARCH FOR YOU:
For legal reasons we have to restrict this to members of Tyndale Fellowship or TF Associates.
Email the Librarian@Tyndale.cam.ac.uk with your subject or scripture reference. A Ph.D student
will perform the search for you and post you a printout of the results. You are charged printing and
postage, plus £5 to recompense the student for the 30 minutes or so they spend on each search.

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SEARCHING FOR THESES
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USA and UK theses can be searched, though free searches are limited.
Most universities will have access to these databases. A few free services are available.
UMI - USA theses. Only the last 3 months are free, unless your university subscribes
- http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/
BRITISH THESES - only available if your university subscribes
- http://www.theses.com/registered_users/simple.html

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GETTING HOLD OF THE TEXT
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Books and journals still live in libraries. A few journals are online, and some older books are on the web.
Photocopy services are limited and often expensive. Have you tried Tyndale Photocopies? (see below).
Online Theological Journals. A growing list, but still too few.
- http://www.bsw.org/ejournals.php
CCEL has most of the available public domain Christian books
- http://www.ccel.org/
Index theologicaus IxTheo - a poor-man's ATLA, only on CD (49 Eu)
About 1/40 of the price of ATLA, covering roughly the same area (though in less detail)
Any listed article can be ordered via Telnet or mail, fairly cheaply.
TYNDALE PHOTOCOPY SERVICE
UK laws allows photocopies of one chapter per book or one article per journal.
Check we have it, then email the Librarian@Tyndale.cam.ac.uk with the details.
You are charged £2 - £3.50 for postage & handling, plus £1.50 per item.
Check the book catalogue - http://www.tyncat.com/
Check the Periodicals list - http://www.tyndalehouse.com/Periodicals.htm