LibGuides: MENA Databases: Online Reference

These are online reference resources which provide introductions and topic articles for special subjects, written by scholarly authors. These articles often include extensive bibliographies, which make them valuable resources for citation chasing.

Other Useful Guides

Online Reference Collection
More information about reference resources at UIUC and where to find them

Online reference resources provided by Oxford Reference share a common search interface, with the exception of Oxford Islamic Studies Online.

Resources

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women
Information on the major topics of scholarly interest within the study of Islam and women, with more than 450 articles with a concentration on contemporary issues.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics
Based on the 2009 publication 'The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World', this work brings together new and updated entries, organised thematically around the major themes of political science: concepts, values, thought, ideologies, structures, institutions, and systems. It covers in-depth topics that are unique to the Muslim world, including basic beliefs; Muslim political history; Islam in specific geographic regions; thinkers and reformers; movements, society and economy; and international relations.
The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture
Deals with all aspects of Islamic art and architecture ranging from the Middle East to Africa to Central, South, and East Asia and includes entries on artists, rulers, writers, ceramics, sculpture, metalwork, painting, calligraphy, textiles, and more
Encyclopedia of Africa
The Encyclopedia of Africa focuses on African history and culture with articles that cover prominent individuals, events, trends, places, political movements, art forms, business and trade, religions, ethnic groups, organizations, and countries throughout Africa

Usage

Oxford Reference does not provide detailed documentation on any special features of its search engine. Two forms of searching are supported.

Search within text - allows you to conduct a basic keyword search within a single reference text

Oxford's item-level search interface with the search box highlighted

Site search - allows you to conduct a basic keyword search across all of the articles and chapters on the website

Oxford reference's site-wide search interface

Booleans

Oxford Reference supports the use of the boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT. They must be capitalized to be parsed correctly. Unquoted search terms separated by white space implicitly have an "AND" connecting them.

Quotation

Multiple words grouped together with quotation marks are treated as a single search term. It is not clear what effect quotation marks have on boolean operators.

Post-Search Narrowing

Oxford Reference does not have an advanced search interface. However, it does allow for fairly robust post-search narrowing of search results. General features are described below.

Oxford search within text post-search interface

Refine Terms - Conduct a new search with added or modified search terms
By Availability - Allows you to narrow search results by the access level of the items you're looking for
By Reference Type - Narrow search results based on the kind of reference resources being searched within
Refine By Subject - Narrow search results by selecting only for specific subject areas
By Content Set - Narrow search based on different subsets of resources available through Oxford Reference
By Illustrations - Narrow search to results with illustrations or images only

Oxford Islamic Studies Online offers a distinct search interface from the rest of Oxford's resources.

Usage

Oxford Islamic Studies offers 7 different types of searches, available through the advanced search interface.To access them:

1. Locate the Advanced Search tab in Oxford Islamic Studies Online's navigation bar

oxford islamic studies navigation bar

2. Mouse over this tab to bring up the following menu

oxford islamic studies online search options

Main Search - searches the entire website
Biography Search - searches biographical articles
Image and Map Search - searches visual media and maps
Primary Source Search - searches primary sources and documents
Bibliography Search - searches across all bibliographic citations located in the collection
Qur'an Search - searches for Qur'an verses across two different translations (Arberry and Haleem
Concordance Search - allows one to search for specific terms (English and Arabic) within the Qur'an and find associated passages

Booleans

Search engines support AND, OR, and NOT operators. They must be entered in UPPERCASE.

The relationship between terms separated by whitespace is not documented publicly, but is assumed to be additive (an AND is implied between search terms).

Quoting

Quoted phrases are treated as single search terms, regardless of internal whitespace. Boolean operators break up quoted phrases and lead to usually undesirable results. For example, "boys AND girls" is interpreted as the search terms '"boys' and the search term 'girls"' joined with AND.

Other

Oxford Islamic Studies Online also supports the NEAR keyword, which matches if the left term is near the right term within the text of an article.

Online reference resources provided by Credo Reference share a common search interface.

Resources

Encylopedia of Islam
In about 550 A-to-Z entries, Encyclopedia of Islam explores the terms, concepts, personalities, historical events, and institutions that helped shape the history of this religion and the way it is practiced today. An informative introduction provides readers with an overview of Islam, and a chronology, a detailed bibliography complete the work.

Usage

Credo Reference does not provide detailed documentation on any special features of its search engine. In general, it allows for three major forms of searches.

Search within text - allows you to conduct a basic keyword search within a single reference text

Credo reference item search bar

Basic site search - allows you to conduct a basic keyword search across all of the articles and chapters on the website

Credo reference site search bar

Advanced search - search the entire site with an expanded set of features, detailed below

Advanced Search

Credo Reference's advanced search is accessed by clicking the "Advanced Search" link to the right of the basic site search bar

Booleans

Credo Reference allows you to define boolean relationships between search terms by placing terms in different boxes. You have 4 boxes to choose from:

"With all of the words" - all of the terms input here must be matched for an article to appear
"With the exact phrase" - words in this box must be matched in the order they appear, similar to quoting words in other search engines. Boolean relationship with other terms is unclear
"With any of the words" - articles match if they match any of the terms in this box, along with fulfilling other conditions
"Without these words" - articles matching these terms are excluded

Other

Additonal options include:

"Search only within headings" - if marked, searches subject headings only
Collection selection
Subject selection
Date selection
Selection for article features like images, audio, etc.