Book Reviews for Religious Studies: Databases

What is a database? A database is an organized collection of records presented in a standardized format that can be searched on a computer. The Orbis catalog is a database, as is the ATLA Religion Database.

When you search in a database what you are doing is searching through records that represent and describe some other object, such as a book, an article, a collection of facts. When you search in the ORBIS catalog, for example, you are not searching within the books themselves, but instead you are searching through records that have been created to describe the books (and other items) within the collections of the Yale libraries. The record provides you with information about an item, such as its author, what it is about, and where it can be found.

There are a number of electronic databases that will point you toward book reviews. A complete list of all databases available at Yale is available through the Databases & Article Searching page on the library's web site. 

The ATLA Religion Database is not only a great resource for finding journal articles on religion topics, it is also an excellent resource for finding book reviews.  You can search for book reviews by title of the book, by author of the book, by reviewer, or by topic.

Searching by Title of the Book

1. In Advanced Search, type in the title of the book and select TI Title from the dropdown list.
   
2. Under Publication Type select Review.
   
3. Hit Search.
   

Searching by Author of the Book

1. In Advanced Search, type in the author of the book (last name first name) and select AU Author from the dropdown list.
2. Under Publication Type select Review.
   
3. Hit Search.
   

Please note that this method will also retrieve book reviews written by your selected author of other author's works.