Research Guides: Religious Studies: Databases & Websites

Finding Articles

There are many places to find journal articles on your topic.

The collections presented here vary from multi-topic databases of scholarly articles, to specialized religious studies databases, to websites that supply facts and data. Here are some general tips useful for your searching:

Keywords not working? Think of synonyms.
Try filters and limiters offered on the database or site, such as date limiting; subject options that trim a massive results list, etc.)
Use a thesaurus to pinpoint perfect words for your topic. Or, when you find a terrific article, book, or video, make a note of the subject words on the record representing the titles (a.k.a. keywords or descriptors)

Cultural Databases

ARTstor This link opens in a new window
ARTstor is a digital library that contains hundreds of thousands of high-resolution images of art, architecture, and archaeological artifacts. Each image is accompanied by descriptive information. The Auraria Library's subscription to ARTstor also offers ArchiVision (architecture) and Shared Shelf (images created and shared by campus faculty). ARTstor includes an OIV (offline image viewer). Images may be viewed and analyzed in the OIV, using features such as zooming, panning, saving groups of images online for personal or shared use, or creating presentations to be delivered either online or offline. Some functionalities of ArtStor including creating folders and using the OIV are only available on laptop or desktop computer.
eHRAF World Cultures This link opens in a new window
Ethnographic materials covering all aspects of cultural and social life worldwide. eHRAF is unique in having subject indexing at the paragraph level. This allows detailed and precise searching for concepts not easily found with keywords.

Religion Data and Surveys

Association of Religion Data Archive This link opens in a new window
ARDA presents facts and data related to religions world-wide. From Pennsylvania State University.
Social Explorer Professional This link opens in a new window
Create and save demographic maps and reports down to the U.S. neighborhood and street level using U.S. census data, the American Community Survey, and the Religious Congregations and Membership Study. Visually analyze and understand demography and social change throughout U.S. history. Also useful in developing an understanding of the census data is an e-book on the history of the census, Measuring America : the decennial censuses from 1790 to 2000.Tip: Start with the maps and tables.
ICPSR This link opens in a new window
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) maintains and provides access to an archive of social science data for research and instruction, and offers training in quantitative methods to facilitate effective data use. Auraria campus users (faculty, staff, students) must register for a personal ICPSR account from an on-campus, networked computer (or a VPN connection) to be able to download data.

National Congregations Study
The NCS surveys a representative sample of America's churches, synagogues, mosques and other local places of worship. It gathers information about a wide range of characteristics and activities of congregations
NAJDB: North American Jewish Databank
The central repository of social scientific studies of North American Jewry.
Pew Research Center: Religion & Public Life
Articles, statistics, and other information about religion in the US.

Multi-Subject Databases

Start My Research
This search retrieves content from virtually all of the Library's databases in one search. Setting the discipline limiter to "Religion" may be helpful.

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
A large collection of full-text interdisciplinary scholarly journals and books, with journal content, often extending to the first volume of a periodical. Auraria Library supplies access to these JSTOR collections: Arts & Sciences; Life Sciences, Biological Sciences; and the Health & General Sciences Collection.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Full text and/or cited references to scholarly literature (articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions) from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites for virtually all subject areas. Resources available to Auraria Library users have a link labeled "Full-Text@Auraria Library".
Academic Search Premier Plus This link opens in a new window
Contains full text of thousands of publications, many peer reviewed. Multidisciplinary, including social sciences, humanities, education, computer science, engineering, language and linguistics, arts and literature, medical sciences, and ethnic studies. Includes images, graphs, tables and illustrations.
Academic OneFile Plus This link opens in a new window
PowerSearch the Gale Databases. News and peer-reviewed periodical articles on a wide range of topics: business, computers, current events, economics, education, environmental issues, health care, hobbies, humanities, law, literature and art, politics, science, social science, sports, technology and many general interest topics. Includes images, graphs, tables and illustrations.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
Full text access to scholarly journals and books in arts and humanities, social sciences, and mathematics.
MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Indexes critical literary and language scholarship and provides access to journals and serials, books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations, and bibliographies.
Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Citations and abstracts for journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, association papers and reviews in sociology, social science and policy science.

Specialized Religion Databases & Websites

PhilPapers: Philosophical Research Online This link opens in a new window
PhilPapers aims to be comprehensive index and bibliography of philosophy. It's maintained by the community of philosophers and contains research content from journals, books, open access archives, and personal pages maintained by academics. PhilPapers also hosts and integrates largest open access archive in philosophy, PhilArchives, which is also accessible as a separate site. For more information on PhilPapers, including how to submit writings, consult the PhilPapers Frequently Asked Questions section.
Academic OneFile Plus This link opens in a new window
This multi-subject database contains Gale's Religion and Philosophy Collection, so is a good place for finding journal articles on religion-related topics.
Cambridge Companions Online This link opens in a new window
The Companions supply essay overviews and analyses of numerous religious topics. The Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, Religion and Culture are particularly rich in religious studies information.
Oxford Bibliographies Online This link opens in a new window
Full-text and cited references for materials related to Medieval Studies, Islamic Studies, and Buddhism.

Theological Commons
A digital library of tens of thousands of books on theology and religion, as well as historic collections of audio, visual, and text-based content. Though the works reach back to the 10th century the bulk of the collection is from the 19th century.
LGBTQ Religious Archives Network
The intent is to preserve historical materials and encourage scholarly study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) religious movements around the world.
Internet Sacred Texts Archives
Online books about religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric. The site is dedicated to religious tolerance and scholarship.

Notable Journals

Journal of the American Academy of Religion
This premiere journal is from the American Academy of Religion, a professional association of teachers and research scholars in North America and abroad. AAR is dedicated to furthering knowledge of religion and religious institutions in all their forms and manifestations.