Library Guides: Religion: Primary Sources

Finding Primary Sources

The Library subscribes to many online databases that contain primary sources. You can browse these databases through the links below.

Contact the Subject Specialist for suggestions.

Database Finder
You can browse by subject or content to find the resource that's right for you.
Research Guides by Subject
Browse the "Primary Sources" tab of the various Research Guides to find resources in a particular field of study.

Digitized Collections related to Religious Studies

American Indian Histories and Cultures This link opens in a new window Explore manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books dating from the earliest contact with European settlers right up to photographs and newspapers from the mid-twentieth century. Browse through a wide range of rare and original documents from treaties, speeches and diaries, to historic maps and travel journals.
Archives of Sexuality and Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940, Part I-II This link opens in a new window
Provides coverage of the development, culture, and society of LGBTQ groups in the latter half of the twentieth century. The archive also contains personal correspondence and interviews with numerous LGBTQ individuals, among others. The archive includes gay and lesbian newspapers from more than 35 countries, reports, policy statements, and other documents related to gay rights and health, including the worldwide impact of AIDS, materials tracing LGBTQ activism in Britain from 1950 through 1980, and more.
Bibliothque virtuelle des manuscrits mdivaux (BVMM) This link opens in a new window
This site allows you to view the reproduction of a wide selection of manuscripts from the Middle Ages to the early Renaissance, preserved in heritage collections scattered throughout the French territory, except those of the Bibliothque nationale de France.

British Library Archives and Manuscripts
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Search here to view details of the British Library's archive and manuscript collections.
Not all records for these collections are online, so be sure to consult the BL's other archive and manuscripts catalogues.

British Online Archives This link opens in a new window
Provides primary source documents that are organised thematically and cover 1,000 years of world history, from politics and warfare to slavery and medicine.

Cambridge Digital Library
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Database for searching and accessing digitized manuscript collections at Cambridge University Library. Website also contains image database and resources for digital manuscript studies.

Disability in the Modern World This link opens in a new window
One person in seven experiences disability, yet the story of this community and its contributions is largely absent from the scholarly record. Disability in the Modern World: History of a Social Movement is a landmark online collection that fills the gap, with a comprehensive and international set of resources to enrich study in a wide range of disciplines from media studies to philosophy.

At completion, Disability in the Modern World will include 150,000 pages of primary sources, supporting materials, and archives, along with 125 hours of video. The content is essential for teaching and researchnot only in the growing disciplines of disability history and disability studies, but also in history, media, the arts, political science, education, and other areas where the contributions of the disability community are typically overlooked.
Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window
Early English Books Online (EEBO) features page images of almost every work printed in the British Isles and North America, as well as works in English printed elsewhere from 1470-1700. Over 200 libraries worldwide have contributed to EEBO. From the first book printed in English through to the ages of Spenser, Shakespeare and of the English Civil War, EEBO's content draws on authoritative and respected short-title catalogues of the period and features a substantial number of text transcriptions specially created for the product.
Early European Books This link opens in a new window
Diverse array of printed sources from the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Opens the door to some of the world's most significant collections of early printed books. All works printed in Europe before 1701, regardless of language, fall within the scope of the project, together with all pre-1701 works in European languages printed further afield.
We have access to Collections 1-6, and 12,
Collection 15: Revolution and Reformation: Science and Religion in the Early Modern Period
Collection 17: Statecraft and Law in Early Modern France
Collection 18: History & Chronicles from the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal
Collection 19: Voyages & Imagination Travel
Collection 20: French Spiritual Life: Religious renewal in early modern France
Collection 21: Peace and Governance
Collection 23: Education, Society and Cultural Life

e-codices | Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland

Anthropology and Sociology of Religion

For more resources in this area, see the library guides for Anthropology and Sociology.

Anthropological Fieldwork Online This link opens in a new window
This fully indexed, primary-source database unfolds the historical development of anthropology from a global perspective—with archival collections from North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific — including key field notebooks, images, and recordings of the early- to mid-20th century. The collection brings together the work of early scholars who shaped the theories and methods students learn about, critique, and reshape in their own fieldwork endeavors today.
Anthropology (Alexander Street Press) This link opens in a new window
Anthropology brings together a wide range of ethnographic documentaries, indigenous media, field notes, study guides and raw footage, covering human behavior the world over.
Docuseek This link opens in a new window
Docuseek2 provides exclusive educational streaming access to documentary and social issue films from Bullfrog Films, Collective Eye Films, Icarus Films (including The Fanlight Collection and dGenerate Films), Kartemquin Films, Scorpion TV, Sincerely Films, Terra Nova Films and Villon Films
Ethnographic Video Online This link opens in a new window
Part of Alexander Street Press's "Anthropology," which brings together a wide range of ethnographic documentaries, indigenous media, field notes, study guides and raw footage, covering human behavior the world over.
Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings This link opens in a new window
Produced in collaboration with the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, the material in this collection includes thousands of audio field recordings and interviews, educational recordings, film footage, field notebooks, slides, correspondence and ephemera from over 60 fields of study.
Mass Observation Online This link opens in a new window
The original Mass Observation research project to study social history was conducted between the late 1930's and the late 1960's. Explore original manuscript and typescript papers created and collected by the Mass Observation organisation, as well as printed publications, photographs and interactive features.
Sex & Sexuality This link opens in a new window
This collection explores changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender identities and sexual behaviors from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Investigating the breadth and complexity of human sexual understanding through the work of leading sexologists, sex researchers, organizations and personal accounts.

Bible, History of Christianity, History of Judaism

See my guides for Biblical Studies and Jewish Studies for more resources, as well as the Classics and Ancient Near East guides.

academic-bible.com
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academic-bible.com provides free access to the original Bible texts in Greek and Hebrew, published by the German Bible Society, in addition to English and German Bible translations.

Analecta Hymnica This link opens in a new window
The Analecta hymnica medii aevi digitalia is derived from a 55 volume print set, originally published from 1886-1922, and is the largest collection of medieval Latin liturgical poetry in existence. In general, hymns texts are found in one group of 13 volumes, while sequence texts are found in another group of 13 volumes. Included in the remaining 19 volumes are tropes, rhymed offices, religious songs, motet texts, rhymed prayers, and rhymed psalter texts. The searchable index contains alphabetized incipits for all texts and indices for genre and liturgical function.

Augustine: The City of God against the Pagans. Online
Edited by R. W. Dyson. of Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Bible in English This link opens in a new window
Under PhiloLogic Contains twenty versions of the Bible. In addition to the twelve complete Bibles, there are five New Testament works, two Gospel works and William Tyndale's New Testament, Pentateuch and Jonah translations.
Digital Loeb Classical Library This link opens in a new window
Loeb Classical Library in electronic form, which includes more than 520 volumes of Classical Greek and Latin literature.

Digital Vatican Library
The Vatican Library's digitization project is focused on manuscripts, but the site also features digital copies of 658 incunabula from the Vatican collection.

Gregory of Nyssa Online: Gregorii Nysseni Opera Online and Lexicon Gregorianum Online This link opens in a new window
Gregorii Nysseni Opera Online is the ultimate online critical text edition of Gregory of Nyssa's works based on all available known manuscripts, introduced with a complete discussion of the textual transmission and accompanied by extensive annotations on the biblical, classical and patristic sources, and indices. Lexicon Gregorianum Online is the most comprehensive Greek-German dictionary of the language used by Gregory of Nyssa. It is the only dictionary available specifically addressing the vocabulary of late Classical Greek. It documents Gregory's complete vocabulary, taking account of the syntax, meaning and connotations of every occurrence of a key word in his writings. The complete Lexicon Online comprises 10 volumes, totaling more than 13,000 entries.
Inquisitions: Manuscripts of the Spanish, Portuguese and French Inquisitions in the British Library, London This link opens in a new window
The Inquisitions presents a remarkable collection of original manuscripts of the Spanish and other Inquisitions from the 13th to the 18th centuries. Acquired from antiquarian collectors and diplomats over the centuries, the collection features originals and early transcripts of statutes, tracts, trial proceedings, correspondence, and original papers of the Council of the General Inquisition in Spain.
Luthers Werke This link opens in a new window
Based on the Weimar edition. Includes his Bible translations and treatises, as well as sermons, letters, Tischreden, poems and hymns. Searches may be limited to a particular work or genre, or expanded to include the entire database.

Buddhist Studies at UChicago

For more resources please consult the library guides on East Asia Studies and Southern Asia Studies.

14th Dalai Lama
Digitized copies of works by the Dalai Lama, available through Twentieth Century Religious Thought

Buddhist Canons Research Database This link opens in a new window
A resource that offers complete bibliographic information (with internal crosslinks and links to external resources) for the roughly 5,000 texts contained in the Tibetan Buddhist canon, and offers both general and targeted full text search access to those texts (approximately 15 million syllables).
The Buddhist Digital Archives This link opens in a new window
University users have full text access to Collections 1-4 and 8-10. Indexing is available for other collections on this website.
Digital Dictionary of Buddhism This link opens in a new window
The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism [DDB] is a compilation of Chinese logograph-based terms, texts, temple, schools, persons, etc. found in Buddhist canonical sources. The Chinese-Japanese-Korean-Vietnamese/English Dictionary [CJKV-E] is a compilation of Chinese logographs, as well as logograph-comprised compound words, text names, person names, etc., found in East Asian Confucian, Daoist, Neo-Confucian texts, as well as other historical sources. Its information on individual logographs is intended to be comprehensive, including pronunciations and meanings from ancient and modern sources from the Sinitic cultural sphere including China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Modern-day compound words are included incidentally, but the coverage of modern materials is not intended to be comprehensive. Publisher's Website
Medieval Travel Writing This link opens in a new window
This collection presents manuscripts of works of European travel writing from the later medieval period. The chief focus is on journeys to central Asia and the Far East, including accounts of travel to Mongolia, Persia, India, China and South-East Asia.
Oxford Bibliographies Online: Buddhism This link opens in a new window
Regularly updated annotated bibliography addressing themes and topics in Buddhism
South Asian History and Culture This link opens in a new window

Wisdom Publications at UChicago Library
catalog search for titles published by Wisdom Publications. Contact Anne Knafl aknafl@uchicago.edu if you're not finding what you need.

History of Religions

More information available on the History research guide and our Area & Cultural Studies guide.

East India Company This link opens in a new window
East India Company offers access to a unique collection of India Office Records from the British Library, London. Containing royal charters, correspondence, trading diaries, minutes of council meetings and reports of expeditions, among other document types, this resource charts the history of British trade and rule in the Indian subcontinent and beyond from 1599 to 1947. Our library has access to the following modules: Module 1: Trade, Governance and Empire, 1600-1947; Module II: Factory Records for South Asia and Southeast Asia, 1595-1830; Module 3: Factory Records for China, Japan and the Middle East; Module 4: Correspondence: Early Voyages, Formation and Conflict; Module 5: Correspondence: Domestic Life, Governance and Territorial Expansion; and Module 6: The Board of Commissioners: Establishment of the Board.
Historic Literary Criticism This link opens in a new window
Historic Literary Criticism is a collection of over 20,000 historical contemporary reviews, essays and commentary related to more than 500 influential authors from the 17th to the early 20th century. The content comes from a range of sources such as contemporary periodicals as well as published and unpublished letters. The cornerstone of the collection comes from the renowned Critical Heritage series from Routledge.

These historical documents and essays allow readers to contextualise some of the most important authors in order to investigate how contemporary critics assessed their works. The provision of the historical literary context allows researchers at all levels, but particularly undergraduates, to place authors and texts into a full historical critical environment, allowing them to understand how contemporary reviewers and peers viewed texts when they were first published. The ability to historicise texts is a key requirement for undergraduate literature students.
Indigenous Peoples of North America, Part.1-2 This link opens in a new window
Enabling exploration of the political, social, and cultural history of native peoples from the sixteenth century well into the twentieth century, Indigenous Peoples of North America illustrates the fabric of the North American story. The collection covers the history of American Indian tribes and supporting organizations.
Social Theory This link opens in a new window
Offers an extensive selection of documents that explore the complexities and interpret the nature of social behavior and organization. Features content by such major theorists as Theodor Adorno, Jean Baudrillard, Simone de Beauvoir, Howard Becker, mile Durkheim, Michel Foucault, Jrgen Habermas, Robert Merton, Dorothy Smith, and Talcott Parsons.
South Asia Archive This link opens in a new window
Contains unique primary and secondary content reflecting the varied range of knowledge production in colonial and early post-colonial India and the wider sub-continent. Material is sourced from collectors and archivists by the South Asia Research Foundation.
Twentieth Century Religious Thought This link opens in a new window
Twentieth Century Religious Thought is a multivolume, cross-searchable online collection that brings together the seminal works and archival materials related to worldwide religious thinkers, from the early 1900s until the turn of the 21st century.

Islamic Studies

More resources are available on the Middle East research guide.

Concordance et indices de la Tradition Musulmane This link opens in a new window
Added in 2021, Wensinck’s Condordance is an essential research tool for those who are interested in Islam’s Tradition (ḥadīth) literature. This body of texts is a major source for Islamic theology and law and forms an important source for historians of early Islam.
Early Arabic Printed Books This link opens in a new window
Early Arabic Printed Books from the British Library (1475-1900) is the first full-text searchable digital library of early printed books in Arabic script. Covering religious literature, law, science, mathematics, astrology, alchemy, medicine, geography, travel, history, chronicles, and literature, and including European translations of Arabic works and Arabic translations of European books, it exemplifies the long exchange of ideas and learning between Europe and the Arabic-speaking world.
Early Western Korans This link opens in a new window
This remarkable collection demonstrates the impact of the holy book of Islam in Europe.
HAZINE This link opens in a new window
practical articles regarding how to access and use archives, manuscript libraries, and collections in the greater Islamic world
Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kabīr This link opens in a new window
(Biography of Muḥammad, His Companions and the Successors up to the Year 230 of the Hijra)
The Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kabīr (Biography of Muḥammad, His Companions and the Successors up to the Year 230 of the Hijra) by Ibn Saʿd (d. 230 A.H./845 C.E.) is the earliest extant biographical dictionary on the life of the Prophet and the early generations of Muslims. It is one of the most important historical works about the first centuries of Muslim society in Arabic.
Philosophy in the Islamic World Online: 8th - 10th Centuries This link opens in a new window
Philosophy in the Islamic World Online: 8th - 10th Centuries is a comprehensive reference work devoted to the history of philosophy in the realms of Islam in its formative period: from its beginnings in the eighth century up to the tenth century AD.
Qatar Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Digital archive covering modern history and culture of the Gulf and wider region.
The Qurʾān Concordance This link opens in a new window
The Qurʾān Concordance is a unique finding aid which allows users to identify and localize text fragments, or snippets, of the Qurʾān.
Western Travellers in the Islamic World This link opens in a new window
Accounts of travel are a popular and accessible source for research on historical relations between East and West and are attractive for specialists and non-specialists alike. In the pre-modern period a large number of such accounts were published all over Europe, and almost without exception these volumes are now scarce and priceless. Some were republished later in modern editions (like those in the Hakluyt series), but these are often out of print at present. IDC Publishers has brought together 223 travel accounts from more than 15 different libraries. This unique IDC collection offers a representative sample of Western travelogues in English, French, and German published until 1800. Predominantly covering the Ottoman Empire, the collection also stretches into Ethiopia, Central Asia, Afghanistan, North Africa, and of course Iran.

Philosophy of Religions & Religious Ethics

For more resources in philosophy and ethics, see my Philosophy subject guide.

Black Thought and Culture (BLTC) This link opens in a new window
Over 400 sources by African American authors, including monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews written by leaders within the black community from the earliest times to 1975.
British Philosophy: 1600-1900 This link opens in a new window
List of Editions InteLex (UofC-Access Only)
Christian Classics Ethereal Library This link opens in a new window
Features the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, provided by Calvin College and maintained by Harry Plantinga. Includes an author index of the works available. Notes that the texts are in the public domain.
Global Health and Human Rights Database This link opens in a new window
"Fully searchable online database of more than 1000 judgments, constitutions and international instruments on the intersection between health and human rights." Produced by the Lawyers Collective and the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown Law.
GreenFILE This link opens in a new window
GreenFILE offers well-researched but accessible information covering all aspects of human impact on the environment. Its collection of scholarly, government and general-interest titles include content on the environmental effects of individuals, corporations and local/national governments, and what can be done on each level to minimize negative impact. Topics covered include global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more. GreenFILE is multidisciplinary by nature and draws on the connections between the environment and a variety of disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health and technology. Publisher's Website
Intelex Past Masters This link opens in a new window
InteLex Corporations Past Masters series encompasses the largest collection of primary source full-text electronic editions in philosophy in the world. The series includes significant collections in the history of political thought and theory, religious studies, education, German studies, sociology, the history and philosophy of science, economics, and classics. InteLex acquires and develops definitive editions of the full corpora of the seminal figures in the history of the human sciences, including published and unpublished works, articles, essays, reviews, and correspondence.
From their website

Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling Online
Evans, C. Stephen, and Sylvia Walsh, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Nietzsche Source This link opens in a new window
A web site containing Digitale Kritische Gesamtausgabe Werke und Briefe (Digital Critical Edition of Nietzsche's Works and Letters) and scholarship on Nietzsche's work and life.

Les Oeuvres de Simone Weil

Published Works of Ludwig Wittgenstein This link opens in a new window
The Published Works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, edited by Professors Hans Kaal and Alastair McKinnon and published by InteLex Corporation is based on various printed editions of Wittgenstein's works. Front matter and notes have not been included; illustrations have.

Religion, Literature, and Visual Culture

See also the Library's Literature research guides and Art History & Visual Arts guide.

ARTstor This link opens in a new window
Popup window blocking must be disabled to use all of ARTstor's features.
Image database covering architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design as well as many other forms of visual culture. Select "Search and Browse for Images" to begin using the database.
ATLA Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative This link opens in a new window
The CDRI database provides access to digital images of woodcuts, photographs, slides, papyri, coins, maps, postcards, manuscripts, lithographs, sermons, shape-note tune books, and various forms of Christian art, architecture, and iconography.

Documents of Latin American and Latino Art
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Explore over 8,000 Documents of 20th and 21st⁠-⁠century art in Latin America, the Caribbean, and among US Latino communities from the International Center for the Arts of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Images: A Guide to Visual Resources
Includes section on Managing Images.

Index of Medieval Art This link opens in a new window
Records works of art (manuscripts, metalwork, sculpture, painting, glass, etc.) from early apostolic times to A.D. 1400 with emphasis on art of the western world. Includes bibliography, references to reproductions, and some links to images. Apostolic times - A.D. 1400. (Formerly Index of Christian art.
Literary Theory This link opens in a new window
Works reflecting the diverse material and interests encompassed by the history of literary theory and criticism.

In addition to works written in English, the database includes works which were originally written in other languages but which have had a significant bearing on English and American traditions of theory and criticism, or which have influenced contemporary theoretical debate in the English-speaking world. All works in the database appear in English.

Among its contents, the database includes:

* formal treatises on criticism and aesthetics
* discourses on the character or practice of specific genres
* theories of imagination, genius and taste
* literary biography, criticism and literary history that expresses important general arguments and precepts
* literary prefaces and dedications
* rhetorical treatises
* poetry which expresses or implies rules of composition or standards of judgement
* theoretical works in disciplines other than English literature which have had a major influence on literary theory

LUNA - University of Chicago Image Database
LUNA, the University of Chicago's teaching collection, includes collections open to the public.

Religions in the Americas

For more resources, see the guide for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and History guide.

African Diaspora 1860-Present This link opens in a new window
The African Diaspora Online, 1860-Present includes 100,000 pages of international primary and secondary source documents, and 50 hours of video, curated for the Black Studies, African American History, and World History scholar. The collection includes 70,000 pages of digitized primary documents, including personal papers, organizational papers, journals, newsletters, court documents, letters, and ephemera from the Caribbean, Brazil, India, United Kingdom, and France.
Chicago Archive of Indigenous Literatures of Latin America This link opens in a new window
(CAILLA, Center for Latin American Studies, University of Chicago)
Early American Imprints: Series I. Evans, 1639-1800 This link opens in a new window
This incomparable digital collection contains virtually every book, pamphlet and broadside published in America over a 160-year period. Digitized from one of the most important collections ever produced on microform, Early American Imprints, Series I is based on Charles Evans renowned American Bibliography and Roger Bristols supplement. Including more than 36,000 printed works and 2.3 million pages
Early American Imprints: Series II. Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819 This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive set of American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the early part of the 19th century. It is based on the noted "American Bibliography, 1801-1819" by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker. With more than four million pages from over 36,000 items
Latin American Anarchist and Labour Periodicals Online This link opens in a new window
This collection contains the periodicals that have been accumulated by the Austrian anarchist, historian and collector Max Nettlau (1865-1944), together with a number of later additions, held at the International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam. The collection provides a richness of documentation pertaining explicitly to the formative anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist episode (1890-1920) in the history of Latin American labor movements.

Latin American and Caribbean Digital Primary Resources
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A database of listings that provide links to open access digitized collections of primary sources that relate to Latin America and the Caribbean. The materials listed are freely available to the public and were created or are hosted at an academic institution associated with SALALM (Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials), either through institutional membership or through the personal membership of a staff member. Currently, the listings may be searched by country, genre/format, hosting institution, and collection title.

Sabin Americana Collection, 1500-1926 This link opens in a new window
Works about the Americas published throughout the world from 1500 to the early 1900s. Included are books, pamphlets, serials and other documents, forming a collection of over 6 million pages from 29,000 works.

Based on Joseph Sabin's landmark bibliography.

Slave Societies Digital Archive
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The Slave Societies Digital Archive (formerly Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies) preserves endangered ecclesiastical and secular documents related to Africans and African-descended peoples in slave societies. SSDA holdings include more than 700,000 digital images drawn close to 2,000 unique volumes dating from the sixteenth through twentieth centuries that document the lives of an estimated four to six million individuals.

Theology

Corpus Thomisticum This link opens in a new window
The Corpus Thomisticum project includes an edition of the complete works of St. Thomas according to the best critical texts, a bibliography on Aquinas, an index of the main tools of Thomistic research, and digitized manuscripts of Aquinas' work.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Sources
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Resources for works by and on Dietrich Bonhoeffer produced by the Burke Theological Library at Columbia University

Digital Karl Barth Library This link opens in a new window
The current release of the Digital Karl Barth Library features the first 36 volumes of Barth's Gesamtausgabe, originally published under the TVZ imprint. Among the works included in the Gesamtausgabe are hundreds of letters, sermons, lectures, conversations, and academic writings. New content, including Barth's monumental Kirchliche Dogmatik, will be added on a quarterly basis.

Introduction to Womanist Theology
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A research guide from Trinity Lutheran Seminary at Capital University. Includes primary and secondary resources.
King Papers Publications
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"The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project has made the writings and spoken words of one of the twentieth century's most influential figures widely available through the publication of The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., a projected fourteen-volume edition of King's most historically significant speeches, sermons, correspondence, published writings, and unpublished manuscripts. "
Liberation Theology Resources
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Includes bibliographies of liberation theologians and open access books. Guide developed and maintained by Dennis Rivers.
Open Digital Theological Library
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"The mission of Open Access Digital Theological Library (OADTL) is to curate high-quality content in religious studies and related disciplines from publisher websites, institutional repositories, scholarly societies, archives, and stable public domain collections. The OADTL uses the world’s most advanced integrated library system (ILS) for cataloging and discovery. This system, OCLC’s WorldShare, makes content easily discoverable and retrievable. The OADTL is staffed by professional librarians and curates content without regard for theological or confessional perspective. It is hoped that the increased access to high-quality religious studies content will serve scholars and students of religion."
Theological Commons
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The Theological Commons is a digital library of over 110,000 resources on theology and religion. It consists mainly of public domain books and also includes periodicals, audio recordings, photographs, manuscript collections, and other formats.

Subject Specialist

Anne Knafl

she/her

Send Email

Contact:

Joseph Regenstein Library, Room 462

773-702-8442

Subjects: Humanities, Jewish Studies, Philosophy, Religion

Transcription Tools

If you are working with handwritten documents or need to transcribe large portions of text for you research, the follow tools may be of help.

For accessibility tools, such as screen readers, consult our Information for Patrons with Disabilities page.

Focus Forward Transcription (FFTranscription)
Paid transcription service that uses AI and humans.
Google Lens
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You can use Google Lens to copy text from an image and paste it into a document.
Maestra
Transcribes audio and video.
Transkribus
Individuals can transcribe 100 pages/month for free. Registration required.
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"Transkribus enables you to automatically recognise text easily, edit seamlessly, collaborate effortlessly, and even train your custom AI for digitizing and interpreting historical documents of any form."

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