Theological Journal Library 1-10 vs. EBSCO Databases

Hi to all. I am thinking to buy Theological Journal Library 1-10, for my graduate research, but not sure if they will be more helpful than simply use EBSCO Databases (which are available through education). Is it still worth to buy Theological Journal Library 1-10? And also, What is more useful? I need an opinion of someone who is working or worked on graduate program. Thanks !!!!

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Kevin Becker

As a recent seminary graduate (MDiv) it's hard to beat the EBSCO database for research. Its ability to search for articles is very good and a number of journals have the full text available. It also indexes books too. I often found books to check out for only a helpful essay or two I might not have found otherwise.

The real question is the quality of the library at the institution you are attending. The full text online only covers a portion of what EBSCO indexes. You will need to factor in a budget to copy articles from the library's hard copy or pay for copies to be made at other libraries. I bought a thin scanner to take to the library with me to save on copies.

However, I also had the Theological Journal Library. And, when my research used articles that it contained I naturally preferred using them within Logos. Also the full text search will be better in Logos than in EBSCO (by virtue of the tagged Bible refs alone)

So the real question is if the cost of the convenience of having the journals worth it to you at this point. The Theological Journal Library is mostly on the conservative side. To do broad research you will probably have to use EBSCO anyway.

In conclusion I think the Journal library is worth owning but you can get by without it provided that you have a good library to supplement the EBSCO database.

Mark Barnes

I have access to a variety of online journals through my PhD program, but I invariably find myself referring more often to the journals within Logos than online. I think that's because I'll often search for something in Logos expecting the result perhaps in a commentary or dictionary, but find that a journal also contains something useful. This experience is so common Logos even had a t-shirt made to describe it!

I'm afraid I'm too lazy to repeat all of my Logos searches in the two or three online databases I have access to. But having the journals in Logos goes at least some way to compensating for my laziness (and when JBL and Themelios are finally released, it will be even better!).

Wild Eagle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212687#Comment_212687

I agree Mark. Thats why i am thinking to buy, because i think it would be much more hesitation to search online.

However, I also had the Theological Journal Library. And, when my research used articles that it contained I naturally preferred using them within Logos. Also the full text search will be better in Logos than in EBSCO (by virtue of the tagged Bible refs alone)

Kevin, did you use more sources from online database, or from Logos journals? That's makes me wonder

Rene Atchley

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212719#Comment_212719

My experience with this product is that it can be very valuable if it meets your particular needs. The theological perspective of the journals selected tend to be rather limited, but they cover that perspective well. Although in my D. Min program I have found the product to have limited value for the dollar.

Kevin Becker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212719#Comment_212719

Kevin, did you use more sources from online database, or from Logos journals? That's makes me wonder

I estimate that when I did research papers and other work that required the use of journal articles only about a quarter of what I cited were in Logos. Just off the top of my head I used articles from these journals that Logos doesn't have

Novum Testamentum
Catholic Biblical Quarterly
Journal of Biblical Literature (ships in March according to the latest estimate)
JSNT
JSOT

If I took the time to dig up my papers I could probably find at least another half dozen not-in-Logos journals I utilized either from accessing electronically or using the database search to hunt down the paper journal in the stacks. In almost every case EBSCO was the portal I used to find the articles. In addition there were plenty of essay collections (festschrifts etc) I checked out that if found through EBSCO. There were times I even used it to find journals that I did have in Logos.

Don't get me wrong. I think the journals in Logos are a wonderful thing, but in my opinion they do not offer sufficient coverage to do the thorough research that a graduate student should do. It's not a question of either-or but both-and. The journals you have in Logos you will find the relevant passages more quickly but the databases your school offers will bring a much greater diversity to your studies.

Wild Eagle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212729#Comment_212729

Thanks Kevin. I thought that Logos would be more useful, hmmmm [^o)], not sure if its worth $$$ to invest in Logos

David P. Moore

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212732#Comment_212732

I did a quick comparison on this very question awhile back, since I am a librarian and was curious about it, and I determined that many of the Logos journal titles are not fulltext in the EBSCO or other library databases. Some of the more mainstream ones are in EBSCO's ATLA, such as Tyndale Bulletin and Bibliotheca Sacra, but smaller ones like Emmaus or Ashland are not there at all. Also keep in mind that others may show up in EBSCO as indexed only, not full text. But I do agree with others in this thread that EBSCO journals will provide a broader theological perspective.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212729#Comment_212729

Yes, there's no way you can use only the journals available in Logos if you're studying at Master's level or above. Depending on your field, you'll need to add several others. But I can't tell you how many interesting and useful articles I found over the years in Logos, when I was looking for something similar. Often that has been in the theological journals, but also frequently in bibliographies in monographs, or in footnotes, etc.

I think it all depends how you use Logos. If you frequently construct searches to 'see what you can find', then you're much more likely to discover useful material in Logos that you wouldn't find on EBSCO (even if it's there).

Allen Browne

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212795#Comment_212795

... If you frequently construct searches to 'see what you can find', then you're much more likely to discover useful material in Logos that you wouldn't find on EBSCO (even if it's there).

Mark, can I ask what (collection?) you typically search for this kind of thing?

I have a collection for English dictionaries/encyclopedias, and several for journals, but reading your post I realize that my searches exclude too much.

Do you have a collection of dictionaries and journals or something? What do you typically search for your academic searches?

[I really do appreciate learning from you guys, as I'm about to start an MA (Theol.) part time.]

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212831#Comment_212831

Mark, can I ask what (collection?) you typically search for this kind of thing?

I have different search strategies for different situations. If I have a very specific question that I need answering, I'll probably search a specific collection with a relatively simple search. To take a recent example from my own study, let's say I wanted to know when the book of Baruch was dated from. I'd search my Second Temple collection with baruch NEAR dating with 'match all word forms' on. You can see from the screen shot that it's pretty effective:

On the other hand, sometimes I don't want a specific answer to a specific question, but I'm more interested in what people are writing about the subject I'm interested in. I want to get a broad range of results, and then scan through and pick out the highlights. I'll probably construct a search that uses lots of the keywords that are relevant, and add them as a list, in a ranked search. Side note: A list uses parentheses: (term1, term2, term3). The search will return articles that match any term, but crucially, searches that return all terms, will be ranked higher. So let's say I'm interested in people are comparing Luke's view of speaking in tongues with Paul's view. My search would be across my whole library (minus bibles), but would be carefully constructed. Something like this:

((Luke, Acts, Lucan) NEAR (Paul, Corinth*, Pauline) NEAR (glossolalia, tongues, γλῶσσ*)) OR ((Luke, Acts, Lucan) NEAR (glossolalia, tongues, γλῶσσ*) NEAR (Paul, Corinth*, Pauline))

Again, you'll see that a number of those results are highly relevant to my question. Although the search looks complex, it's actually very simple. I've decided that relevant passages would refer to three concepts: Luke's writings, Paul's writings, and tongues. So a simple version of the search would be Luke NEAR Paul NEAR tongues. But I realise that some writers won't mention Paul directly, but will mention Corinth or Corinthians instead. And some might refer to glossolalia instead of tongues. So I add in these synonyms and others that I think of. Finally because there are three terms in my NEAR search, I know that word order matters when combining NEAR searches, so I duplicate the search and rearrange the order. (Explanation: In the search term1 NEAR term2 NEAR term3, then term2 has to be near to term1 and near to term3, but term1 doesn't have to be near term3. So term1 NEAR term2 NEAR term3 is not the same as term2 NEAR term1 NEAR term3.)

Searches like this take a long time to run (and to think of!), but they can find things you wouldn't get otherwise. I won't run them very often, but whenever I start thinking about a new subject, I'll experiment for perhaps 30 minutes or so with a variety of searches like this, and add useful articles to clippings or to favorites. I'll usually find enough useful material for several days reading.

Another tip, perhaps. As you can see, I almost always use NEAR or WITHIN xx WORDS when searching non-Biblical texts. I don't use AND. In the Bible, AND means 'in the same verse', but in books, it just means in the same 'article'. (An 'article' usually the text between two headings, though that doesn't hold when headings are very far apart). Anyway, the point is that when you use AND outside Biblical texts, you have no idea how close together the two search terms need to be. In some resources they could be several pages away and still be included. In my mind, that's not relevant enough, so NEAR is much more specific.

Alan Macgregor

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212732#Comment_212732

I used EBSCO ATLA Serials and other online sources of Journals – e.g. JSTOR and SAGE – for my PhD research. For me the real clincher was the ability to download PDFs of the articles I needed and also being able to export citations into my EndNote bibliographic manager. I would only bother with the Logos resources if I could not access journals online.

Allen Browne

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212882#Comment_212882

Thank you, Mark, for the two clear and very different examples, illustrating a straight-forward search on a narrow collection, and a more involved search on a broader range of resources.

In the 2nd one, the OR is intriguing:
((Luke, Acts, Lucan) NEAR (Paul, Corinth*, Pauline) NEAR (glossolalia, tongues, γλῶσσ*)) OR
((Luke, Acts, Lucan) NEAR (glossolalia, tongues, γλῶσσ*) NEAR (Paul, Corinth*, Pauline))

Presumably the NEARs are executed left-to-right.
So, (looking at just the first item from each list) the first half finds Luke near Paul, and then that result near glossolalia.
The second finds Luke near glossolalia, and then that result near Paul.

That's a very helpful example.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212888#Comment_212888

Presumably the NEARs are executed left-to-right.

Tucked away at the bottom of my previous post was this explanation:

In the search term1 NEAR term2 NEAR term3, then term2 has to be near to term1 and near to term3, but term1 doesn't have to be near term3. So term1 NEAR term2 NEAR term3 is not the same as term2 NEAR term1 NEAR term3.)

That's not quite the same as your understanding, I think. I've tried typing an explanation as to why it's different several times, but I've deleted it. It's quite confusing to spell it out! If you disagree with me, or are confused, just say so, and I'll try again!!

To use a real life example, 1 Cor 5:6 - "Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough?"

boasting NEAR yeast NEAR dough will find this verse, because boasting is near to yeast, and yeast is near to dough.

yeast NEAR boasting NEAR dough will not find this verse, because although yeast is near to boasting, boasting is not near to dough.

<edit>In other words, I'm agreeing that the search is executed left to right, but I'm disagreeing because it's not the result of the first two terms that's looked for near the third term, but that the middle term has to be near to both the left and right terms.</edit>

Kevin Becker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212732#Comment_212732

Slava,

I hope you've been following Mark's search advice and gleaning ideas.

He is demonstrating that Logos does help you dig to find stuff that you might miss in EBSCO. Logos' usefulness expands the more resources you feed it. If I were entering a grad program today I would use Logos more than I did during my MDiv. I say this because

I have more resources. Expanding my investment has increased the number of things worth finding in my Logos library.
I understand how to use Logos much better. I was using Libronix in a fairly limited way back then. I understand Logos 4 much better thanks to people like Mark and forcing myself to learn so I can answer questions on the forum.

Whatever you choose to do, invest in the Theological Journals from Galaxie or just using the online sources make certain you know how to use them proficiently. Get the advice of other students and librarians. Figure out how to ask questions that a search engine will give good answers to and you'll save a lot of time working on your program.

Allen Browne

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212900#Comment_212900

Thanks again, Mark.

After some experimenting, I've found it to be exactly as you explained.

a NEAR b NEAR c NEAR ...
is understood as (a in proximity to b) AND (b in proximity to c) AND (c in proximity to ...

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212917#Comment_212917

a NEAR b NEAR c NEAR ...
is understood as (a in proximity to b) AND (b in proximity to c) AND (c in proximity to ..

Yes, that's right, except that the b in both cases must be exactly the same word in exactly the same position, which isn't guaranteed by that syntax. This means that a NEAR b NEAR c will return different results to (a NEAR b) AND (b NEAR c). So (creature NEAR kind) AND (kind NEAR earth) in the ESV will return Genesis 1:24 and 7:14, whilst creature NEAR kind NEAR earth will return no results. That's because one occurrence of kind is near one occurrence of creature, and a different occurrence of kind is near another occurrence of earth.

tom

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212722#Comment_212722

The theological perspective of the journals selected tend to be rather limited, but they cover that perspective well.

I agree

Allen Browne

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/213007#Comment_213007

a NEAR b NEAR c NEAR ...
is understood as (a in proximity to b) AND (b in proximity to c) AND (c in proximity to ..

Yes, that's right, except that the b in both cases must be exactly the same word in exactly the same position, which isn't guaranteed by that syntax. This means that a NEAR b NEAR c will return different results to (a NEAR b) AND (b NEAR c). So (creature NEAR kind) AND (kind NEAR earth) in the ESV will return Genesis 1:24 and 7:14, whilst creature NEAR kind NEAR earth will return no results. That's because one occurrence of kind is near one occurrence of creature, and a different occurrence of kind is near another occurrence of earth.

Got it. Thanks, Mark.

As you said previously, it's not that straightforward to explain, even though it makes sense when you get it.

So, a NEAR b NEAR c NEAR ... is understood as:

a in proximity to an instance of b that is also in proximity to an instance of c that is also ...

Wild Eagle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/212907#Comment_212907

Slava,

I hope you've been following Mark's search advice and gleaning ideas....

I have more resources. Expanding my investment has increased the number of things worth finding in my Logos library.

I understand how to use Logos much better. I was using Libronix in a fairly limited way back then. I understand Logos 4 much better thanks to people like Mark and forcing myself to learn so I can answer questions on the forum.....

Thanks Kevin for the reply, yes it is very helpful, I am planning to buy today theological journals. I see your point, because i was wondering why you used only 1/4 of logos resources. I do understand that I cant be limited by the Logos resources only, because I need much more broad view, and different types of journals.

Thanks Mark for the tips of how to be more affective in research. I have learned so much from you. Those high quality "unofficial videos" http://vimeo.com/user1930633/videos are so helpful to me. I have learned the most from your training sessions. I think that they should become "official" by Logos. I would highly recommend everyone to watch it.[Y]