Contents

What is included in the

catalogue?

Searching the catalogue

Advanced search options

Glossary of catalogue terms

Accessing data sources

Citing sources

Searching the catalogue

The data sources are listed in the searchable Source Catalogue which provides a unique BRIN ID number for each source. 

BRIN users can retrieve lists of religion-related studies through either a basic free text search, or advanced search options. The main search box allows users to conduct a basic search on all the text included in the records. Users can also conduct an advanced search on the descriptors attached to particular fields or categories, such as the source title, name of faith community, or geography.

The basic 'free text' search

All text contained within the records is searchable. Source contributors have aimed to help retrievability by assigning subject keywords to each source, to represent the religion-related content of the source, as well as other key variables. These generally derive directly from the text contained within the source itself, rather than being harmonised using the HASSET thesaurus.

The exception is where historical terms have fallen out of use - for example, faith school is given alongside elementary school, church school or denominational school. In other cases, new terms such as bioethics have arisen rapidly and have not been added to older sources, since users are likely to search secifically on abortion or euthanasia. We have also used consistent spelling of religious terms to improve  retrievability.

The main search box finds, by default, sources that best match the words and phrases in a free-text query. This is done by automatically finding pages that match the meaning, not the exact wording, of the query.

Queries are not case sensitive, and you can search for any word. All searches require a term to be entered into the main search box. If you want to browse all the sources, type All in the main search box.

Further options for the main search box include the following.

Boolean AND operator: Add AND to find all instances where two specific words are both contained within a source listing. For example, Catholic AND Muslim would find all entries that include both the words “Catholic” and “Muslim”.

Booelan OR operator: Add OR to find all instances of either one word or another, for example Catholic OR Muslim. This query finds all sources that include the terms “Catholic” or “Muslim”, or both.

For more specific searches, advanced search options are provided below the main search box.