Author Archives: Fred Rowland

Dreaming of the End

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There are strong apocalyptic elements to each of the major Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Among the events prophesied are things like the appearance of a messiah, huge cataclysms, a last judgment, and the end of the world. Given the current awful conflicts in the Middle East–home to these religions–and the religious passions involved, the following articles and books might provide some food for thought.

Apocalypse: An Overview // Eschatology: An Overview // Armageddon, battle of// Millennialism // Mahdi // Messiah // Antichrist // Judgment of the Dead //Revelation, book of // Shia: Imami (Twelver) // Jerusalem in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam // Prophecy // Isaiah
Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism // Left Behind Series // Rapture, Revelation, and the end times // Contemporary Muslim apocalyptic literature // The resurrection and the afterlife // Eschatological themes in medieval Jewish philosophy // The fate of the dead : studies on the Jewish and Christian apocalypses // On the road to Armageddon // The battles of Armageddon


Evangelical Solidarity with the Jews // Ideological Roots of Christian Zionism //The Legend of al-Dajjal (Antichrist) // Eschatology: Some Muslim and Christian Data // Time, Culture and Christian Eschatology // Bin Ladin: The Man Who Would Be Mahdi // Waiting for the Messiah // Romance Between Christian Right, Jewish Establishment Seems to Be Cooling Off // Farrakhan: This is time of doom// Jerusalem in Islamic fundamentalism

–Fred Rowland

Interesting stuff about books

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Here are some interesting books/articles/databases/web sites on the history and evolution of the book, in no particular order. Thanks to librarian Anne Harlow for pointing me to Book 2.0, the source for the first four entries below.

GAM3R 7H3ORY, by McKenzie Wark

Books In Time, Carla Hesse

On the Future of Academic Publishing, Peer Review, and Tenure Requirements

Institute for the Future of the Book

Book 2.0 (Temple user name and password for the Chronicle is in Journal Finder)

The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, Elizabeth Eisenstein

The Nature of the Book, Adrian Johns

Book History Online (BHO)

Self, Culture, and Self-Culture in Modern America: The Early History of the Book-of-the-Month Club, Joan Shelley Rubin

John Playford and the Stationers’ Company, Nicholas Temperley

Learned Publishing (Temple does not subscribe to this journal, but much of the content is free.)

The European physics publications scene: avant-garde and traditionalism, Claus Montonen

Alternative Futures for Library History, Jonathan Rose

The Great Library of Alexandria Burnt: Towards the History of a Symbol, Jon Thiem
—Fred Rowland

Brill Journals

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The library now has electronic access to most of the journals from Brill, including those from its imprints Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. The Brill list is particularly strong on religion, history, and area studies, while VSP publishes science, technology, and medicine journals and Martinus Nijhoff handles international law and human rights. Access is provided not from the Brill web site itself, but through the journal aggregator IngentaConnect (which is not very user-friendly, unfortunately). You will find links to all of these journals in Journal Finder. Once in IngentaConnect, full-text is available when you see an orange “S” icon next to the journal or article. Coverage goes back in some cases as far as 1995 and extends to the current issue. However there are journals that only offer the most recent few years. In most cases, we already have some electronic coverage of these journals through Academic Search Premier, ATLA, JSTOR, or other databases, but usually not the most recent year. Now you can get all the most recent issues hot off the press! —Fred Rowland

Importing into RefWorks from Diamond

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I was asked about importing from Diamond, our library catalog, to RefWorks. It can be a little tricky, so I offer a few abbreviated steps:

1) When you’re ready to export the records from Diamond, you should select “End-Note/RefWorks” as the format from the list at the left.

2) On the right select “Local Disk.”

3) Click “Submit” and save the file to an easily accessible location.

4) Log-in to RefWorks.

5) From the “References” menu at the left of the RefWorks menu bar, select “Import”.

6) Select “EndNote View” as the “Import Filter/Data Source” and the “Database”.

7) If you want all the imported references to go into a specific folder you can select it next under “Import References into.”

8) Under “Import Data from the Following Text File” click on “Browse” and then find the file you just exported (probably called “export.txt”) and click “OK”.

9) Click “Import” at the bottom.

10) Your records should then be imported. You can view them by clicking on the “Recently Imported” folder link.

If you have any question, ask.

—Derik A Badman

Finding country information using Europa World

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Let’s say you’re researching the Christian response to globalization in Latin America and you need some current information on the countries of Argentina, Chile, and Peru. Or you’re studying Judaism in contemporary Russia, or Islam in Indonesia, and you need to know more about those countries. Maybe the size of the economy and its major sectors are important, or the legal system and its support for civil and religious rights, or the size of the population and the number of different ethnic groups. For these and other reasons, there is often a need for up-to-date and reliable country information. Temple has just the source for you: Europa World (available from the A-Z database list), an online product based on the print Europa World Year Book which has been published since 1989. This online source covers over 250 countries and territories. Look up the entry for Peru from the dropdown box in the upper right corner of the homepage. You’ll get links to Country Map, Country Flag, Country Profile, Country Statistics, Directory: Government and Politics; Directory: Society and Media; and Directory: Business and Commerce. You can even choose Comparative Statistics to compare Peru to other countries. You can also find country information on the Web by searching for “country studies” or “country information” in any of the major search engines. Two web sites of particular note are Country Studies from the Library of Congress, and the CIA World Factbook.

The Chron on Refworks

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The latest issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education (Volume 52 Issue 40 Page A29) has an article titled “Toss Out the Index Cards” (free online) on bibliographic management software such as EndNote and RefWorks. The University has a license for RefWorks that allows free use by students, staff, and faculty. Follow the link and sign up to give the software a try. As an addition to the article I will note that many of the library’s article databases (including all EBSCO and OVID products) have the ability to automatically export citations into RefWorks with a simple click of the mouse (and a quick log-in to your account). If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. —Derik A Badman

Index Islamicus

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The library has recently added the online version of Index Islamicus to our databases. Index Islamicus Online is the premier database supporting the field of Islamic Studies. An international source for articles, books, and conference proceedings, Index Islamicus is a key resource for anyone studying Islam, the Middle East, and the Muslim world. Along with Arabic countries, it includes coverage of Africa, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and other areas of the world with Muslim populations, like the United States, France, and Great Britain. Subject matter goes back to the ancient and medieval world and will be a useful interdisciplinary resource for historians, art historians, philosophers, theologians, and classicists. Over 3000 journals in multiple languages are monitored for inclusion and records go all the way back to 1906. Index Islamicus offers a basic and an advanced search. One of its most useful features is the ability to select subject descriptors from a bibliographic record and perform a new search with just those selected descriptors. Full text linking and links into Temple’s library catalog Diamond are provided, but the database itself has no full text content and no abstracts. Records can be easily exported to the bibliographic utility Refworks.

L’Annee philologique arrives!!

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At long last, the library has access to L’Annee philologique, the most important database for the study of the ancient Greco-Roman world. L’Annee reflects the international and multidisciplinary nature of classical studies, indexing books, articles, and conference papers from around the world in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and other languages. (You will often find that the abstract to an article is written in a different language than the article itself.) Whether you’re searching for information on the Presocratics, the Homeric Hymns, the archaeological remains of Pompeii, or ancient science and technology, you will find highly relevant and dependable sources here.

L’Annee philologique online is based on the print index of the same name that has been a standard for years among classics scholars. Current online coverage is from print volume 30 (1959) to volume 74 (2003). You can search by Modern Author, Ancient Author, Full Text, Subjects and disciplines, Date, and other criteria. In the case of “Full Text”, this does not mean that you can search the entire contents of articles–this is NOT a full text database. Rather, it means that you can search the entire contents of the article records. This is unusual terminology for users in the United States and reflects L’annee’s European origin.

There are some other important features that might be surprising to non-classicist American users. For the Ancient Author search, you need to input the latinized version of a name, so for instance “liuius”, not “livy”. To search for “livy”, do the Full Text search. Complex searches are also handled differently. You have to build up your search step by step. To combine a Modern Author search with, say, a Subject search, you have to first do the author search, then the subject search, and finally combine the two searches using the boolean operator AND. Once you’ve done all the simple searches describing your topic (and you can have many), the combining and recombining of search sets–using AND, OR, and NOT–is made easy and efficient.

Unfortunately, the Help pages to this database are sparse. Below I’ve listed a bunch of academic library tutorials that I found useful:

–Fred Rowland

Biblical and Other Ancient Manuscripts Online

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I was recently trying to track down online images of ancient Christian and Jewish manuscripts. I found quite a few imaging projects that are making ancient Mediterranean manuscripts more and more available to the scholar and layperson. The briefly annotated list below highlights some of the more interesting sites I ran across. (By the way, if anyone knows of any other good sites with images of ancient manuscripts, please let me know. Thanks.)

  • APIS: Advanced Papyrological Information System–“APIS is a collections-based repository hosting information about and images of papyrological materials (e.g. papyri, ostraca, wood tablets, etc) located in collections around the world.” Browse and search the database. Note:Search system gives you the option to “Show records w/images first”. The five collections immediately below are included in APIS.
  • Center for the Tebtunis Papyri–UC Berkley collection from the town of Tebtunis Egypt. “…largest collection of papyrus texts in the Americas.” For images click on “The Collection” and “On-Line Exhibits” on the left-hand side of the page.
    Image Content: from 3rd century BC to 3rd century AD; administrative, legal, business, and religious documents; literary fragments (Homer, Xenophon, Pinder, Euripides)
  • Duke Papyrus Archive–Very easy site to navigate. Search or browse by topic or language. Catalog records included with each image.
    Image Content: “1400 papyri from ancient Egypt.” Includes Old Testament (used by christians), New Testament, and other early Christian manuscripts
  • Princeton University Library Papyrus Homepage–Scroll down the page and click on “Digital Images of Selected Princeton Papyri”.
    Image Content: administrative, religious, literary manuscripts in Greek (including New Testament), Latin, Egyptian, Coptic, Arabic
  • University of Michigan Papyrus Collection–Well-designed site with lots of information on ancient writing. To see images click on “Exhibits” or “APIS” in menu bar at top..
    Image Content: Greek (including New Testament) and Latin papyri
  • Yale Papyrus Collection–Search Yale’s Papyrus Collection Database to view images.
    Image Content: many genres, many languages, many locations, many time periods
  • Biblical Manuscripts Project–Purpose is to make “high quality images and transcriptions of important Bible manuscripts and early printed editions freely available through the Internet.” Scroll down the page for descriptions and links to these excellent images.
    Image Content: New Testament, Old Testament, Hebrew Scriptures
  • Catalogue of New Testament Papyri and Codices 2nd–10th Centuries–no images on this site but lots of links and a nice overview of major collections of New Testament manuscripts.
  • Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts
    Image Content:very sharp images of New Testament manuscripts.
  • Herculaneum Papyri–Search this database of papyri found at Herculaneum, Italy.
    Image Content: Greek literary and philosophical documents
  • University of Manchester Image Collections–Amazing images, select “Rylands Genizah” for Hebrew documents or “Rylands Papyri” for Egyptian, Coptic, Arabic, Greek fragments (including classical authors and New Testament). You must turn off your popup blocker.
  • New Testament Gateway On-Line Images–Very nice list of links to images on other web sites. Try the “Codex W: Images of Mark” link for very readable images of a New Testament manuscript.
  • Online Database of New Testament Manuscripts–Search this database for location and description of New Testament manuscripts held in museums and libraries around the world. This database does NOT contain any images.
  • Oxyrhynchus Papyri–Search or browse this database of papyri found at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt.
    Image Content: from 1st century BC to 6th century AD, Greek papyri,wide range of genres including classical authors and New Testament
  • West Semitic Research Project–Project at USC. Click on the “Educational Site” link to go to images.
    Image Content: ancient religious documents including pages from Leningrad Codex and Dead Sea Scrolls

    • —Fred Rowland

    Encyclopaedia of Islam Online now available

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    The Encyclopaedia of Islam is a great work of reference covering the many-sided nature of Islam and the Muslim world, with articles on art, history, law, philosophy, politics, religion, and more. The user can browse the alphabetical entries, or peruse and select from the Subjects index or the Names index. Searching options include using English or transliterated terms to query Full Text, Headwords (article entries), Keywords, bibliographies, or Contributors.

    • Interested in the famous library at Cordoba created by the Umayyad caliphs that “contained some 4000,000 volumes, described in a catalogue of 44 volumes, each containing 40 leaves”? What was its fate? Check out the article entitled MAKTABA (Arabic for “library”).
    • What about the spread of Islam in China, where the “military forces [of Kubilay Khan], used for the overunning of both North and South China, were built largely upon the thousands of Muslim soldiers which he brought with him from the Middle Eastern and Central Asian campaigns.” Look at the article on CHINA (al-SIN).
    • Want to find books and articles on modern Turkey? Search the Bibliography field for “modern turkey” and you’ll retrieve the bibliographies of 81 articles. If you’re just interested in the early state period, you could add the term “world war” and reduce the set to 5. (You can even search the bibliographies for “temple university” and find that two Temple dissertations have been cited.)
    • And what about a comprehensive article on the Koran (al-KURAN), with sections on Etymology and Synonyms, Muhammad and the Kuran, History of the Kuran After 632, Structure, Chronology of the Text, Language and Style, Literary Forms and Major Themes, The Kuran in Muslim Life and Thought, and Translation of the Kuran?

    The Encyclopaedia of Islam covers the main precepts of Islam at the same time that it reveals the rich interplay between Islam and other world civilizations going all the way back to the late antique world. This encyclopedia will prove very useful, whether you’re studying the core of Islam or just nibbling at the interdisciplinary edges. There are some challenges, however, that the user needs to deal with. For one, you will need to download Brill fonts for handling Arabic terms in transliteration. You can find links to the fonts in the upper right corner of the main search page. For serious scholars and students of Islam the many Arabic terms are one of the encyclopedia’s great advantages. For the uninitiated, however, it does take some getting used to (but after a little while it becomes fun). Don’t wait. Check out the Encyclopaedia of Isalm today! BTW, more good news: the second edition of The Encyclopedia Judaica will be released in the fall in print and online (as part of the Gale Virtual Reference Library). I hope we can get both versions. This will fill a big gap as we do not currently have a major online Jewish/Judaism encyclopedia. –Fred Rowland