A valuable and overlooked pre-pub: Religious and Theological Abstracts

Rosie Perera
Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

For $49.95 you get abstracts (summaries) of all the articles in all the available issues of 738 theological journals! (See the list of them all on the product description page -- link below.)

What an awesome research tool. And what a bargain!

http://www.logos.com/product/8652/religious-and-theological-abstracts

All content available in the rtabstracts.org database will be available and easily searchable through Logos. Normally you need a subscription to access that content, and it costs $45 per year. Now you'll be able to permanently own all the content currently in that database for a one-time cost of just slightly over that. No word yet on how future updates will be handled. But this is a buy-once product, not a subscription. So it seems like an awesome thing to grab now while you can, as who knows what will happen in the future.

Comments

  • Simon’s Brother
    Simon’s Brother Member Posts: 6,822 ✭✭✭

    Now all we need is to get all those journals in Logos...maybe one day....I can see this would be valuable though for working with the Journals that are currently in Logos as I see some names there that are in my library....so you've got me to sign up...

  • Rosie Perera
    Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭

    this would be valuable...for working with the Journals that are currently in Logos

    Even for journals not currently in Logos it would be useful. Say you're researching some very specific topic and you search in RTA and find that there are three articles in different journals that seem to be exactly about the topic you're writing on. You can read the summaries of the articles and find out if they would contribute to your thesis. If you're in seminary and they have a decent library, they might have those issues in the stacks, but if not, they could probably get photocopies of them for you from some other library in the Inter-Library Loan system. In fact, probably any public library could get photocopies (or scans) of them for you from another library. Yeah, it's not as nice as sitting at home and doing all your research within Logos. But if you come across reference in one of your Logos resources to an article that looks intriguing but isn't available in Logos, you can at least read a summary of it. That's better than nothing!

  • fgh
    fgh Member Posts: 8,948 ✭✭✭

    This is one prepub I really wish would move faster!

    Logos: could you please write a blog on it? [^][G][W]

    Mac Pro (late 2013) OS 12.6.2

  • fgh
    fgh Member Posts: 8,948 ✭✭✭

    I can see this would be valuable though for working with the Journals that are currently in Logos

    Those journals will already turn up in searches. It's for locating articles in journals we don't have that it'll be invaluable.

    Mac Pro (late 2013) OS 12.6.2

  • Beloved Amodeo
    Beloved Amodeo Member Posts: 4,204 ✭✭✭

    fgh said:

    Those journals will already turn up in searches. It's for locating articles in journals we don't have that it'll be invaluable.

    [Y]

    Meanwhile, Jesus kept on growing wiser and more mature, and in favor with God and his fellow man.

    International Standard Version. (2011). (Lk 2:52). Yorba Linda, CA: ISV Foundation.

    MacBook Pro MacOS Sequoia 15.3.2 1TB SSD

  • Scott S
    Scott S Member Posts: 423 ✭✭

    Rosie,

    Do you know how helpful the abstracts are themselves?  Do they contain the conclusions of the articles?  (I looked for example abstracts at the RTA site, Logos product page, and at Amazon, but didn't see any.)

    In fact, probably any public library could get photocopies (or scans) of them for you from another library.

    I didn't realize the library sharing system included religious journals, thanks for mentioning it.

    Scott

  • fgh
    fgh Member Posts: 8,948 ✭✭✭

    Scott S said:

    I looked for example abstracts at the RTA site (...) but didn't see any.

    You can search the site without subscription (click Search R&TA on the left); you just won't be able to see more than the first 5 results (unless you find ways to work around that restriction (which is possible, but takes time)). You'll get something like this:

    image

    The quality of the abstract will depend entirely on who's written it, but here's one:

    image

    Mac Pro (late 2013) OS 12.6.2

  • Rev Chris
    Rev Chris Member Posts: 570 ✭✭

    It would be nice if they included Scripture tags.  Anyone know how this compares to Ebscohost?

    Pastor, seminary trustee, and app developer.  Check out my latest app for churches: The Church App