Getting Started
Welcome to your Subject Guide, where you'll find tailored guidance and advice on key library resources.
Essential Resources
Reference works such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, companions, etc. are a great place to start learn about a new topic, e.g. by providing helpful summaries and useful bibliographies.
- Bloomsbury Collections This link opens in a new window
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A collection of arts and humanities eBooks, with a strong focus on Philosophy.
- Cambridge Companions This link opens in a new window
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Includes the series The Cambridge Companion to Philosophy, Religion and Culture, which offers thousands of comprehensive and accessible essays on major authors, periods and genres, written by experts and designed for student readers.
Titles include: The Cambridge Companion to Pentecostalism; The Cambridge Companion to Black Theology. - Cambridge Histories This link opens in a new window
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Cambridge Histories offer a big picture perspective in each subject area, making them essential reading for anyone researching or studying a subject that has an historical element. Titles include: The New Cambridge History of the Bible; The Cambridge History of Christianity. - Digital Karl Barth Library This link opens in a new window
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The entire corpus of Barth's work.
- Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts This link opens in a new window
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An exhaustive resource for historians, theologians, political scientists, and sociologists studying the religious and social upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries.
- Oxford Handbooks Online This link opens in a new window
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The Oxford Handbooks series brings together the world’s leading scholars to write articles that survey the current state of scholarship in their field. The articles review the key issues, reveal original arguments and concepts, and set the agenda for new research. Titles include: The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies; The Oxford Handbook of Ecumenical Studies. - Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window
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This collection of reference works allows cross searching of over 100 dictionaries and encyclopedias published by Oxford University Press.
Titles include: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church; The Oxford Companion to the Bible. - Encyclopaedia Judaica 2007 This link opens in a new window
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Overview of Jewish life and knowledge from the Second Temple period to the contemporary State of Israel.
- Encyclopaedia of Islam This link opens in a new window
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A comprehensive and diverse reference guide to current knowledge of the Islamic World, including details of Islamic history, religion and the global Muslim diaspora.
- American National Biography Online This link opens in a new window
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Profiles of nearly 20,000 Americans from all eras who have influenced and shaped the USA's history and culture. From missionaries to musicians, social workers to statisticians, cowboys to chemists, and Vikings to astronauts. Includes people from pre-colonial times to those who have died in the last 5 years.
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window
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50,000 biographies of people who shaped the history of the British Isles and beyond, from the earliest times to the year 2000.
- Who's Who and Who Was Who This link opens in a new window
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The leading source of up to date information about over 90,000 influential people from all walks of life, worldwide, who have left their mark on British public life.Who Was Who is an archive of people included in previous editions of Who's Who.
Most of the Library's print books on Theology are located on the first floor at the following shelfmarks:
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Doctrines |
202 |
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Philosophy & theory of religion |
210 |
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Bible |
220 |
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Gospels & Acts |
226 |
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Christianity & Christian theology |
230 |
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Christian ethics |
241 |
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Christian orders & local church |
250 |
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Social & ecclesiastical theology |
260 |
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Doctrinal controversies & heresies |
273 |
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Christian denominations & sects |
280-289 |
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Religions of Indic origin |
294 |
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Judaism |
296 |
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Islam |
297 |
Bible Commentaries
You can find a handy list of many Bible Commentaries held in the Library here: Bible Commentaries Resource List.
The Foyle Special Collections and Archives on the second floor also hold several important collections relating to theology and religion, including:
- Bishops' Conference CollectionBooks and teaching materials from a 1970s project of the Department of Catechesis of the Education Commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.
- Queen's Foundation CollectionDocuments relating to the authority and governance of the Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain 1998 – 2002, from a project commissioned in 1996 by the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education in Birmingham.
Specialist databases
Databases are large, searchable collections of academic materials (journal articles, ebooks, newspapers, videos, etc). Some journal databases provide access to full-text articles, whilst others provide abstract or citation information about journal articles that we may or may not have full-text access to. The content of most databases are linked to 'Search Everything' on UR Library Search, or for more precise and relevant search you can choose to search the individual databases.
- Atla Religion Database with AtlaSerials This link opens in a new window
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The most comprehensive resource for research in Theology and Biblical Studies. It provides full-text access to over 100 major religion and theology journals. Additionally it indexes c. 1,750 journals on all aspects of religion and many essays in edited books.
- International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) This link opens in a new window
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A comprehensive social sciences database which provides an index to books, journals, newspapers and dissertations dating back to 1951.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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Hundreds of full text journals and eBooks in the arts, humanities, social sciences and life sciences.
- Oxford Journals Archive This link opens in a new window
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Contents of 142 Oxford University Press Journals from their first issue to 1995.
- Project Muse This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to journal articles, eBooks and reviews in the humanities and social sciences. Spotlight on Project Muse blog post.
- Fuller Bible videosIntroductions to the books of the Bible.
- Bibledex - a video about every book in the bibleBibledex is a project by the University of Nottingham's Department of Theology and Religious Studies in conjunction with video journalist Brady Haran.
- St. John's Timeline Project This link opens in a new window
Interactive timelines containing video interviews from a theological perspective on subjects as diverse as 'Gospel and Empire', Jacques Lacan, onto theology, Richard Dawkins, natural evil, and feminist theology. Note: see additional information for how to access off campus.
- Kanopy This link opens in a new window
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Streams thousands of films, documentaries and training videos across a wide range of subjects. Note: Click 'Log in to Roehampton' on the left side of the screen to gain access. Please note: BBC programmes may be available via Roehampton Online Broadcasts (ROB).
- ROB (Roehampton Online Broadcasts) This link opens in a new window
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Record and stream freeview TV and radio programmes for educational use, create clips and playlists, and access the archive of recorded programmes including BBC and Shakespeare Archives. ROB is managed by AVR, for assistance contact: avr@roehampton.ac.uk.
- ARTSTOR This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to curated high quality images from reliable sources that have been rights-cleared for use in education and research. It contains 300 collections composed of over 2 million images.
- BFI Player for Higher Education This link opens in a new window
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The British Film Institute's curated streaming service for higher education, with a focus on British and European independent films. Note: after logging in with your Roehampton email address, you need to create a personal user account for access. You may watch content on personal devices or in class, but BFI Player is not licenced for public screenings.
- The Global Digital Library on Theology and Ecumenism for freeFree online database, containing many open access journal articles on the subject of Ethics and Theology. Its focus is on theology,intercultural and interreligious dialogue, ethics, and ecumenism. To access full-text articles you must create a free account.
- Bible OdysseyResearch on key people, places, and passages of the Bible from the Society of Biblical Literature.
- CCEL (Christian Classics Ethereal Library)This digital library comprises hundreds of classic Christian books. It is particularly good on works by Early Church Fathers.
- Codex SinaiticusCodex Sinaiticus is one of the most important books in the world. Handwritten well over 1600 years ago, the manuscript contains the ChristianBible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament.
- Research in MinistryA thesis and dissertation abstract database where users can search for and share the outcomes of research conducted in programs of study related to ministry, theology and religion.
- STEP : Scripture Tools for Every PersonA useful tool from Tyndale House you can use to search for Bibles, commentaries, passages, etc.
- Theological CommonsThe Theological Commons is a digital library of over 150,000 resources on theology and religion.
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