The Austen K. deBlois Library Collections

The Austen K. deBlois Library is home to over 117,000 books and nearly 400 current journal titles. The Library's collection includes books, periodicals, microforms, and audio-visual materials, as well as computer and internet based resources.

Main Collection
The strength of our collection lies in the basic areas of traditional theological education: Old Testament, New Testament, theology, and church history. Special emphasis is placed on the areas of Baptist history and doctrines, missiology, ecumenics, marriage and family, church renewal, and urban ministry. The collection is also gaining strength in the areas of ethics, homiletics, and worship.

Special Collections
In addition to the main collection, the Library maintains the significant and growing J. Pius Barbour Black Studies and Soto-Fontanez Hispanic Studies collections, as well as the MacBride humanities collection, and a small Korean Studies collection. Both the Black Studies and Hispanic Studies collections are the largest of their kinds in the Philadelphia area. The Library also maintains a Juvenile Collection of over 1,000 titles, including books, videos and DVDs for children of all ages.

Periodicals
Journals owned by the Library are listed in the online catalog. A complete list of periodical titles is also located near each computer in the Library.

Journal Search Databases
The Library offers access to the following journal search databases that are of particular interest to seminary students: ATLA/ATLAS Religion Database, Religious & Theological Abstracts (RTA), Old Testament Abstracts (OTA), and New Testament Abstracts (NTA). These databases index journal articles and some books, providing citations, abstracts, and even, in the case of ATLAS, full texts.

ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials (ATLA/ATLAS): This database is produced by the American Theological Association. It combines indexes to journal articles, book reviews, and essays in all fields of religion with ATLAS's online collection of religion and theological journals.

This database includes more than 460,000 article citations from more than 1,500 journals, 260,000 essay citations, and more than 423,000 book review citations, with 30,000 records added annually. Journals are selected for inclusion according to their scholarly merit and scope. They represent all major religious faiths, denominations, and numerous languages.

Since ATLA provides the widest coverage of journals relating to religion, it may be your first choice for finding citations to journal articles, essays, and book reviews from the past 50+ years. A good number of articles, essays, and reviews are linked to full text for viewing online (ATLASerials). Yet most articles, essays, and reviews will only provide citations. You have to determine the relevance of the record from its title and subject headings yourself.

Religious & Theological Abstracts (RTA): RTA currently abstracts more than 400 journals, with summaries produced by a team of scholars from around the world. Coverage includes journals relating to Christianity, Judaism, and other world religions. English language abstracts are provided for articles in French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Afrikaans, Hebrew, Italian, and Spanish. One great advantage of RTA is that it provides abstracts for each record in the database.

Old Testament Abstracts (OTA): OTA is a product of the partnership between the American Theological Library Association (ATLA) and the Catholic Biblical Association. The current edition contains over 39,000 records spanning more than twenty years of biblical scholarship from 1978 to the present. All abstracts are in English regardless of the language of the original work. Sources are predominantly journal articles but also include books, essays, and software.

New Testament Abstracts (NTA): Every year NTA abstracts at least 2,150 articles chosen from more than 500 periodicals in numerous languages. Nearly 850 current books are also summarized annually. NTA indexes and abstracts articles on the New Testament appearing in Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish periodicals. Abstracts are in English, although the books and articles may be in other languages.

All databases are available online in the Library for public access. Current seminary and Eastern University students, faculty and staff may access these databases through EBSCOhost on the Warner Library website. In order to access the databases from off campus, you must register with My Athens at the Circulation Desk.

Other electronic resources
The following are only available on the Library computers.

• NIV Complete Bible & Maps
• BibleWorks
• Greek Tutor
• Hebrew Tutor
• World Christian Database

Palmer Seminary and Eastern University students and faculty have access to a myriad of other electronic resources through the Warner Library website.