Research Guides: Archaeology: Searching

Theological terminology

CLASS B - PHILOSOPHY. PSYCHOLOGY. RELIGION
This is a clickable PDF of the subject headings from the Library of Congress for Class B which includes biblical studies (BS). BS621 and DS101-151 are the core call number sections for archaeology in the Holy Lands. You will search the catalog and databases more efficiently if you come at it with a knowledge of the headings for theology and related areas of inquiry. It's helpful to know, for example, that one can quickly locate commentaries or other biblical scholarship on a Bible book by including "commentaries" or "interpretation" respectively.

Key subject headings when searching the catalog:

Excavations (Archaeology) [add city or region if known, e.g. Palestine]
Bible--Antiquities [add refining keywords when appropriate]

Titles in Buswell's reference collection.

Finding journal articles and essays on your passage

Google Scholar

Google Scholar (GS)
Consider Google Scholar as another essential research tool. Its fundamental advantage over other databases is Google's phenomenal relevance algorithm applied across the complete full text of the sources included. Most other databases consist of only of "records" describing a book or article at various levels.

Scholar also has a "cited by" feature that is a useful indicator of how important a work is in the scholarly conversation on your topic.

Tip! Connect Google Scholar with the library's full text access and interlibrary loan services. -- See instructions.