Searches among ATLA and Its Database Rivals: A Comparison Study of Search Results and Unique Results for Theological-Specific Research Questions. (2nd January 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fearrien, Bret David
• Is Part Of: Journal of religious & theological information. Volume 22:Number 1(2023)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 17
• Publication Date: 2023-01-02
• Subjects: Academic librarianship -- ATLA -- Bible -- Boolean searching -- comparative studies -- database searching -- EBSCO -- Gale -- information retrieval -- library science -- multidisciplinary -- ProQuest -- quantitative -- research -- shared results -- theology -- total results -- unique results; Theology -- Bibliography -- Methodology -- Periodicals; Religion -- Bibliography -- Methodology -- Periodicals; Theological libraries -- Periodicals; Libraries -- Special collections -- Theology -- Periodicals; 026.2
• DOI: 10.1080/10477845.2022.2047381
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1047-7845

Abstract

Abstract: This original study formulates three hypothetical queries tailored to college-level theological research questions that focus on topics pertaining to biblical theology. The study runs searches for those queries in four religion-specific databases and two multidisciplinary databases in order to compare the total tally of peer-reviewed journal articles in each database along with the total unique results contained within each database. ATLA Religion Database with ATLA Serials performed best for both objectives. Meanwhile, Religion & Philosophy Collection (EBSCO) and Religion Database (ProQuest) proved helpful for some of the research queries. Consequently, Religion and Philosophy Collection (Gale) performed poorly for both objectives. The two multidisciplinary databases (Academic Search Complete and ProQuest Central) performed unevenly. ATLA represented the best choice if simply performing one search in a database; however, using all databases (other than Religion and Philosophy Collection, Gale), represented a stronger strategy for retrieving a high number of unique results, as the databases did not have a high number of shared resources.