Reviewing this work, or set of works, has been an exciting and thought‐provoking experience. Since anything on this scale is a substantial commitment for any library and information service, looking for value for money is absolutely critical. This review will try to give readers a sense of what the experience of using it is like, and what it has distinctively to contribute to the reference canon.
There are currently 27 Routledge encyclopedias and dictionaries, guides and who's who works in the Religion Resource. They range from monasticism and the papacy, early Christianity and Protestantism, Egyptian gods and goddesses and the history of science and religion, across Judaism and Confucianism and African‐American religions and paganism and world religions, to religion rites rituals and festivals, death and dying, religion and war, religion and American law, and ethics, theology and society. There are several who's who type works (like Christianity, New and Old Testaments), three of the Fifty Greats series (Eastern, Christian and Jewish thinkers), and a North American Muslim resource guide.
So one of the first things likely to be considered, after whether you want it for the library, is whether you already have it in the library. All these works are already published, and you may already have some of them. Several have been recently reviewed in these columns, including Encyclopedia of Protestantism (RR 2004/418), Encyclopedia of Religious Rites, Rituals, and Festivals (RR 2005/75) and RoutledgeCurzon Encyclopedia of Confucianism (RR 2004/183). Others like Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism have been reviewed in print format but are not included in the Religion Resource. Many are outstanding in their field, while others are more hybrid and eclectic with assertive rivals. It will be useful, then, for reference and collection managers to look carefully at what Religion Resource contains so that a simple audit can be made of current stock before moving forward to subscribe or purchase.
Another factor worth taking into account is that of currency, always critical in reference works. The generic online publication date of 2004 should not blind customers to the fact that the works translated into an online format here date from various periods, some, like The World's Religions, going back to the original print publication date, in this case 1988. This does not mean for one moment that the overall quality visibly suffers, although a typical entry like Bryan Wilson's “Secularization and Religion in the Modern World” (latest reference 1985) does need noting. The Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses is an online version of the original print work from 1986, and, while mythology changes only a little, historiography and archaeology change a lot.
Another work, The Papacy: An Encyclopedia, is a translation from the French Dictionnaire historique de la papauté, first published in 1994 by Librarie Arthème Fayard and translated and published in English, in a revised form, by Routledge later. That said, its preface (translated rather awkwardly at times from the French) is an urbanely neutral historical and critical introduction to its subject, and the work as a whole, in print and now online, retains its magisterial edge. These are not criticisms – merely objective comments on what a library is likely to get by committing itself to Religion Resource.
Turning now to other things, the 27 inhabitants of this online resource are well‐known reference works in their own right, and by going online you get the value‐added functionalities of multiple‐simultaneous use and search versatility (pricing depends either on the number of simultaneous users or the size of an institution (further information on the Religion Resource web site)). A work like Encyclopedia of Protestantism, for example, benefits hugely not only from having an electronic search facility but also from being searchable alongside other valuable works in the same field, like works on monasticism and early Christianity, Christian thinkers, and the history of science and religion. Even for libraries which already have print versions of some of these reference works, the search opportunities will prove a benefit. Such services also allow for quick reference searches in works like the Who's Who in Christianity, with its easy to locate listings of apostles and denominational sect founders, ecumenists and educators, saints and social reformers, polemicists and mystics. This work covers both Eastern and Western churches and is the online version of the second edition (2002) of Lavinia Cohn‐Sherlock's print original. Entries on Fox and Rosenkreutz caught my eye!
One of the real strengths of Religion Resource is how it allows the subscriber to range across all the 27 works. This not only helps locate and collocate relevant material, but it also reconciles the sometimes fuzzy content boundaries between reference works, above all on peripheral entries. So it allows the subscriber to move, say, from A Popular Dictionary of Paganism (with entries on wicca and shamanism, the Qabalah and esotericism, and an excellent contextual introduction from its editor Joanne Pearson) to the Encyclopedia of Death and Dying (with entries like Lethe and liminality, taboo and terminal care) and the Encyclopedia of Religious Rites, Rituals, and Festivals (with entries like kava rituals and the Ghost Dance, pilgrimage and purification).
Another juxtaposition might be a search through The Reformation World, picking up, say, on Johnston's article on the Reformation and popular culture (located as chapter 30 in the section on Reformation and Society) and popular cultural aspects of death and ritual. From works like Religion and American Law, not only is there substantial and authoritative commentary on two topics that have powerfully shaped each other in North America, but there are imaginative entries on issues like cults and the First Amendment and copyright and the suppression of religious dissent. In a similar way, the History of Science and Religion in the Western Tradition will offer the college and university library and courses it supports a very great deal: typically, thoughtful discussions of religious periods like Roman Catholicism since Trent and the conflict between science and religion.
Authority, accessibility and searchability, then, emerge as important, albeit familiar, criteria for any work of this type. A wide range of search and browse options are provided by Religion Resource, allowing searches across the constituent reference works. A search box and an advanced search page are provided, and navigation moves across linked pages easily. Search terms are highlighted on entry pages. Searches can be simple, like an alphabetical search under A for Peter Abelard (it also picks up Thomas à Kempis from the Who's Who in Christianity) or complex, and simple searches can be refined and deepened on Boolean principles. Searches can be made by book, length, and subject.
I looked for “heretic” and found entries like Christian Heretics and Malchion to Cathars and Sixtus II, pointing forwards to at least eight included works. A search under “heretic” by book reveals, from the Encyclopedia of African‐American Religions, how controversial have been the Pentecostal Churches of Apostolic Faith. Long and short articles may help control printing by enthusiastic students and trim knowledge to user needs. Advanced searches (one can carry this out full‐text, selecting or deselecting as you go) under, say, “abortion” confirm the rich cross‐disciplinary research possible using Religion Resource. From there “Protestantism NOT Luther”, “Schopenhauer NOT Existentialism”, “Vatican 2 NOT Roman Catholic Church”, and “New Age NOT Wicca” are possible (but no results from “Schopenhauer AND Existentialism”!). This allows teachers and students to migrate through recall to precision easily, and offers user education specialists on the library staff plenty of opportunities to pin down essential materials for courses.
Religion Resource, then, is a substantial commitment of money for any subscriber, let alone a small library with limited funds. It is important to ask whether you need it, what you have already, what part of the model might suit you, and what it might offer you in terms of content and searchability. The individual works in Religion Resource are well‐recognized and some, like the RoutledgeCurzon Encyclopedia of Confucianism and Religion and American Law, stand out in their field. This review tried to give readers something of the experience of using the online resource on a review basis. Like the topics it covers and represents, many of the works and their entries are complex and subtle. Others, like the quick reference entries, are easier to grasp. But all, by being linked in a robustly designed data capture/search engine environment (Semantico and Lucene have done a good job here), will enable libraries and their users to see just how richly‐textured and endlessly new the field of religious ideas really is.
