Reading background information helps fill in knowledge gaps. Virtually everyone, even experts, can benefit from reading authoritative summaries of the historic background, current developments, major players, and primary issues of a chosen topic. These summaries often include basic bibliographies that help to jump start research projects.

Major sources of authoritative summaries are subject dictionaries and encyclopedias. Other background information may be obtained from biographical and statistical sources and other reference works such as handbooks and directories.

Use the catalog to find books, ebook titles, and series titles. For broader results or to discover more titles, try a keyword search, or use Advanced search for subject searches and more refined results.

Print books may be located in the Reference Collection (for in-library use only) or in the Main JD McKean Library Collection (available for checkout). To filter your results to reference books, add b8:reference to your search. Example: evangelism AND b8:reference

Looking for ebooks? After you perform a search, go to the Format section in the left sidebar and check the box next to eBooks. Ebook entries will include direct links to the full text.

In the library catalog, search one of the selected biographical ebooks or try some of the other searches listed below.:

In the library catalog to find books on biographies try searching personal names as subjects or keywords.

Classes of people as subjects or keywords

Other keyword searches

Try searching the person's name in a reference database listed below.

Major statistical & demographic databases

Statistics related to religion:

Other sources of statistical information

Search the library catalog for subject dictionaries and encyclopedias. Here are some sample searches to try:

To identify the more scholarly Bible commentaries, use the Bible commentaries series opens new windowchart in the Bible Commentaries Plus guide. The chart categorizes the commentaries as devotional, pastoral, or academic, with the academic category generally being the most scholarly and therefore the most desirable for use in college papers.

See also David Bauer's opens new windowEssential Bible Study Tools for Ministry, especially the "Highly Recommended" sections of his selected lists of commentaries for each book of the Bible. The book is kept at the Library Services Desk on the "Quick Reference" shelf.

To find a denominational or church-related directory or handbook, do a search for:

((denomination* OR church*) OR ("Christian sects")) AND (handbook * OR director*)