Guides: Religious Studies: Books & More

Online texts

Past Masters (CRKN - Intelex ) This link opens in a new window
A collection of 117 full-text databases of the writings of leading scholars and creative writers of the past. Particularly strong for women's writings from the 18th century to the early 20th century.
Internet Sacred Text Archive This link opens in a new window
Archive of electronic texts about religion, mythology, legends and folklore, and occult and esoteric topics. Texts are presented in English translation and, in some cases, in the original language.
Canada Commons This link opens in a new window
Formerly the desLibris collection, contains 8,000+ English and French ebooks from 47 Canadian publishers including the major Canadian university and scholarly presses.
Empire Online (CRKN - Adam Matthew) This link opens in a new window
Cultural contacts from 1492 to 1969 will full-text access to manuscripts, printed texts and pictures. One section is dedicated to Religion and Empire, including conflict between religious communities

Encyclopedias (Online)

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion
Regularly updated and peer-reviewed, this encyclopedia provides wide-ranging overview essays on a variety of religions and related topics.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy This link opens in a new window
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is an online encyclopedia of philosophy run and maintained by Stanford University. Each entry is written and maintained by an expert in the field, including professors from over 65 academic institutions worldwide.
Dictionary of the History of Ideas This link opens in a new window
Articles on selected pivotal ideas, edited by Philip P. Wiener, originally published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, in 1973-74.
Canadian Encyclopedia This link opens in a new window
The Canadian Encyclopedia comprises the complete text and multimedia of the indispensable reference work originally published in 1985. Since the encyclopedia appeared online in 2001, it has been continuously updated and expanded.

Shakespeare's Religious Language by R. Chris Hassel
ISBN: 9781847142214
Publication Date: 2007
This dictionary discusses just over 1000 words and names in Shakespeare's works that have some religious denotation or connotation. Its unique word-by-word approach allows equal consideration of the full religious nuance of each of these words, from 'abbess' to 'zeal'.

Reference Books: A Selection of Print Resources

Ref. GT 3150 T25 2000 Death and the Afterlife: A Cultural Encyclopedia by Richard P. Taylor

Ref. QH 332 E52 2004 Encyclopedia of Bioethics in 5 volumes 3rd ed. S.G. Post

Ref. BR 95 E8913 1999 Encyclopedia of Christianity ed. E. Fahlbusch et al.

Ref. HQ 1073 E54 1989 Encyclopedia of Death ed. R. Kastenbaum

Ref. BR 162.2 E53 1990 Encyclopedia of Early Christianity ed. E. Ferguson

Ref. BL 31 E46 1987 Encylopedia of Religion in 16 volumes ed. M. Eliade

Ref. BR 95 O8 1997 Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church 3rd ed. E.A. Livingstone

Guide to Call Numbers for Books in Stacks

Subject Areas	LC Class Ranges
Ethics : General Works	BJ 71-1185
Religious Ethics	BJ 1188-1295
Religion (General)	BL 1-98
Natural Theology	BL 175-290
Myth. Comparative Mythology.	BL 300-325
Classification of Religions	BL 350-410
Religious Doctrines (General) including: Women in Comparative Religions. Goddesses.	BL 425-490 BL 458-473
Eschatology	BL 500-547
Worship	BL 550-619
Religious Life and Organization	BL 624-632.5
History and Principles of Religions incl. Classical, Oriental, African Religions.	BL 660-2790
Judaism	BM 1-990
Islam	BP 1-195
Buddhism	BQ 1-9800
Christianity including: Early Christian Literature	BR 1-1725 BR 60-67
The Bible including: The Old Testament The New Testament	BS 1-2970 BS 701-1830 BS 1901-2970
Doctrinal Theology	BT 10-1480
Practical Theology. Worship. Pastoral Theology. The Christian Life.	BV 1-5099
Christian Denominations including: Ecumenism Roman Catholicism	BX 1-9999 BX 1-9.5 BX 800-4795
The Church and Social Problems	HN 30-40
Death and Dying	HQ 1073-1073.5
Medical Ethics. Terminal Care. Dying.	R 723-726.8

Theses & Dissertations

Theses Canada Portal This link opens in a new window
Full text electronic versions of Canadian theses and dissertations that were published since 1998.
MSVU e-Commons: MSVU Graduate Theses This link opens in a new window
Full-text versions of graduate theses produced at MSVU since 2006. Includes theses from Education, Family Studies & Gerontology, Applied Human Nutrition, Women and Gender studies, Child and Youth Study, and Public Relations.
Open Access Theses and Dissertations This link opens in a new window
An index providing access to over 1 million full-text open access graduate theses and dissertations from institutions in Canada, United States, and all over the world.
EBSCO Open Dissertations This link opens in a new window
OpenDissertations is an open-access database built to assist researchers in locating both historic and contemporary dissertations and theses.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations This link opens in a new window
The NDLTD Union Catalog contains more than one million records of electronic theses and dissertations. For students and researchers, the Union Catalog makes individual collections of NDLTD member institutions and consortia appear as one seamless digital library of ETDs.
EThOS ( Electronic Theses Online Service) This link opens in a new window
The aim of the Electronic Theses Online Service (EThOS) is to maximise the availability and visibility of UK doctoral theses via a single web interface. It does this by providing both high quality metadata and, where possible, access to the full text either by downloading a PDF directly from EThOS or by following a link to the institutional repository.

Subject Databases
Many of our subject databases (including ERIC, PsycInfo, Ageline, MLA, SocIndex, Historical Abstracts/America: History & Life, Child Development & Adolescent Studies, Gender Studies) provide indexing of select dissertations.

Degree-granting institution
Check the home institution for an online repository/archive. More and more theses and dissertations are being made available in open access format.

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
An academic search engine