Library

YOUR LIBRARY ONLINE:
AVAILABLE ANYTIME, ANY PLACE!

All currently enrolled Grace School of Theology (Grace) students have access to wonderful library resources and services. The Grace Library contains thousands of books and eBooks that are appropriate to biblical and theological study. It also contains books appropriate to life as the pastor of a church and a minister of the Gospel. Other appropriate materials are included.

YOUR LIBRARY LOGIN INFORMATION IS PROVIDED IN CANVAS

Library Catalog & Databases Open Online 24/7 For Your Research Needs

The digital catalog shows you what is available in our on-campus library. Library materials may be electronically searched from your own computer and are organized according to the Library of Congress classification scheme.

ONLINE LIBRARY CATALOG

Español | Português | Philippines

Information Literacy and Ethical Use of Information

As a Grace Student, you have automatic access to many electronic databases. It is unethical and illegal to allow anyone who is not a student, faculty member, or staff member at GRACE to use the usernames and passwords provided to GRACE students. As Christians, we are called upon to take an ethical stand on these issues. When you are off-campus, you may access the databases from home, from your phone, or any other computer Internet connection using the URL, usernames, and passwords (found in Populi and in Canvas). Access to these databases is restricted to Grace students, staff, and faculty only. Please do not share this login and password information with non-Grace students.

YOUR LIBRARY LOGIN INFORMATION IS PROVIDED IN CANVAS

LOGIN TO CANVAS

Visiting the Library in Person

The Librarian and the Assistant Librarian place student needs above all. Students can speak to a library professional for any reference or research issue. The main library is located at The World Headquarters in the Woodlands, Texas, where you can reach your librarians by email, phone, or in person.

We can help students around the world by email, and we can telephone you to help you no matter where you live.

Online Students - Grace School of Theology in The Woodlands, TX

Electronic Resources

The best sources for college research are books and journals. The Internet by itself is a confusing and misleading source, but professional databases can be relied on for much more reliable information. Since the advent of the Internet, e-books and journal articles can best be found in databases. Students may use password-protected databases for research needs at any time of the day or night. Full-text books and scholarly articles are available through these databases. Passwords to all proprietary databases can be found in Populi and in Canvas under Library

Library Training Videos

The Librarian has created training videos for all of the electronic databases. These videos are carefully produced in our Woodlands video studio to be exactly appropriate for Grace School of Theology students. You can also find a video that leads to your database passwords here. These videos are based on the exact databases and access points you will be using to do your research as a student here. We recommend that you watch them in advance of starting to do your research as they can help you tremendously. To access these videos, go into Canvas to any class that you are taking at GRACE, look down the left-hand column of your course home page. The Library Login link in Canvas will guide you not only to the databases, but also to these training videos. If you have any difficulties, contact your library, or write to us at library@gsot.edu.

Library Databases

The library offers more than 25 useful databases from a number of major database companies. Some of outstanding databases available to you for your research needs include the following:

ATLA and EBSCO Journal Articles and Ebooks
ATLA is the theological database of the Association of Theological Libraries. This is the most complete theological database in America, and we are happy to offer it to you for all your biblical research needs. This database contains full-text articles from academic journals and citations to other articles that may be useful in your research.

EBSCO EBooks offers online books, complete and exactly like the printed copy, word for word. Over 16,000 e-books are available here on a wide variety of topics. Over 7,000 biblical and theological books are to be found in this collection.

EBSCO Academic EBooks
This database offers academic and scholarly eBooks appropriate to the college and graduate school levels. Currently this database contains over 120,000 eBooks.

PROQUEST RELIGION and PROQUEST FULL-TEXT DISSERTATION Databases

JSTOR Electronic Library: One of the best retrospective journal databases on the market.

Biblical Archaeology Society Online Archives: features thousands of scholarly journal articles on archaeology and the Bible.

You will be amazed by the quality and quantity of the resources offered by these databases!

The Writing Center

Grace School of Theology also offers an online Writing Center that can be found in every Canvas Course. This Writing Center shows examples of Turabian format for footnotes and bibliography. There are also excellent samples of research papers which can be used as examples for writing your own papers at GRACE. The school also provides a writing tutor who will be happy to assist you with the technical details of composing and documenting your college research papers. Please use the contact information under “The Writing Center” to make an appointment with our Writing Tutor who is available in person, by email, and by telephone

How To Request or Check-out a Book Remotely

To request or check-out a library book when you are not at the Woodlands Campus, simply email your librarian and provide your name address and phone number along with the title and author of the book you wish to check out. If you come to the library, you may take the book with you. Books are due in two weeks in person, but may be renewed for additional weeks by email or telephone.

If you are not close to the physical library, find the book in our online library catalog and email the Librarians with the title and the author of the book you wish to check out and your postal mailing address. Your book will be sent to you by mail. You may check out up to five books at a time by mail. When you return one or all of them, you may check out more. By mail, books are checked out for three weeks or more to make sure transit time does not cut into research time for you. All books must be returned at the end of each module.

How To Reach Your Librarians

Your Grace School of Theology Librarians are eager to help you achieve all your educational goals. Librarians can help you understand your assignments, limit your topic, and find research materials in physical and electronic libraries. In fact, in graduate school, many students say that the librarian is their best friend!

Olivia Vineyard
Interim Librarian
Phone: 713-897-8025

Mr. Billy Webb
Assistant Librarian/Circulation Specialist
Phone: 713-897-8304

Or write to library@gsot.edu for the Library Department.

Please be aware that library research takes time, you cannot expect to do it the night before the assignment is due. Remember the educator’s 6 P Rule: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. Never wait until the last minute to get the library information help you need!

Think of the Librarian as your personal research professional. The Librarian is available to help with research for any papers or projects, and all your other research needs. Don’t hesitate to call her: Most librarians went into their profession because they love to help people! The Grace librarian can help you more than you can even begin to imagine – just ask!

Additional Resource Links

Directory of Open Access Journals: Free Full Text scientific and scholarly journals. Directory of Open Access Journals covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. They aim to cover all subjects and languages. There are more than 4026 journals in the directory, and more than 1448 journals are searchable at article level. More than 271,243 articles are included in the DOAJ service.

Research in Ministry (RIM):Online indexes and abstracts projects and theses from over 100 DMin and DMiss Programs.

CDRI: Digital Resources for the Study of Religion: The Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative of the American Theological Library Association and Association of Theological Schools is a repository of digital resources contributed by member libraries. The creation of CDRI was made possible by a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation; it is now an ongoing ATLA program. The CDRI database provides access to digital images of woodcuts, photographs, slides, papyri, coins, maps, postcards, manuscripts, lithographs, sermons, shape-note tune books, and various forms of Christian art, architecture, and iconography.

Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN): The Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN) is a library of over 10,000 theological thesis/dissertation titles representing research from as many as 70 different institutions. Titles may be ordered online through our search and order system. TREN also makes available conference papers presented at annual meetings of several academic societies. A few of the conference paper sources are: Evangelical Theological Society (1,129 papers), American Society of Church History (150 papers),Society for Pentecostal Studies (75 papers), North American Patristic Society (20 papers), American Catholic Historical Association (14 papers), You can obtain documents from TREN in three media formats: digital, downloadable e-docs (NEW!), and paper copies are available at 15 cents per page. Low cost microfiche is available between $3 and $5 per title. Shipping and handling is $6.50 per shipment.