Using Oxford Handbooks Online

If you navigate to Oxford Handbooks Online through links on first page of this guide, from the Encyclopedias, Handbooks, and Reference Resources guide, or from online catalog it will open in a new window and you will be prompted to enter your Populi login credentials if not already signed in on another tab. You will know you have successfully signed if you see "Signed in as Meadville Lombard Theological School" at the top of the left menu and the search is already limited to the subject area "Religion":

Simple Search by Keyword

To begin searching, enter term(s) in the "Term" section of the "Narrow Your Choices" menu. Selecting "Update" will run the search. In order to be sure that the articles and Handbooks that come up in results are ones you can access, be sure to mark the checkboxes for "Unlocked" and "Free" in the "By Availability" section of the menu.

Search results can be viewed at the article or Handbook level by selecting the appropriate tab. Results will have search terms highlighted and a green open lock symbol to indicate the Handbook or article is accessible to Meadville Lombard patrons: 

Refine Terms

Similar to an Advanced Search in other online platforms, Oxford Handbooks Online allows you to add terms to your search that can be connected by the boolean operators "and," "or," or "not." These operator terms determine how the search terms in each text box relate to one another. For example, looking for information about "liberation theology" and "Latin America" would return results that contain both terms in the record or article text. A search for "liberation theology" not "Latin America" would return results that contain the term "liberation theology" in their record or article text without the term "Latin America" present.

To add a term to your search, select "Add Row" then enter the term and select the appropriate boolean operator. Select "Update" to run the search again with your added term:

Refine by Date

Although most contents in Oxford Handbooks is recent, you can use the refine by date options to limit results to Handbooks or articles published in print or online to a particular date range. For reference, at the time of writing this guide the oldest Handbook Meadville Lombard patrons have access to was published in print in 2004 and online in 2009. 

The "By Date" menu allows you to limit results to either a date range or a specific year of publication. You can make a selection from the drop-down to specify if those dates should apply to the online publication date or the print publication date.

Refine by Subject

Meadville Lombard has access to Oxford Handbooks Online on the subject of religion, but there are further subject refinements that can be used to limit results to sub-topics. Selecting the "+" plus symbol next to a subject will display the sub-topics to choose from. This is a useful refinement if you've entered a broad search term(s) that returns an overwhelming number of results. Selecting a subject refinement will narrow the focus of your search to more specific sub-discipline or topic within the study of religion: