How to Use: Video Tutorials
Most content in the GLDTL can be found by using the search box on the home page, or one of the advanced search links below it. You can search for articles, books, and journals by name or by subject. The video below gives an overview of how to search the GLDTL. For additional help, you can also view the tutorials made for the main DTL on our YouTube channel – the GLDTL uses the same search system.
How to Use the Global DTL
Transcript
Hello, my name is Tom Phillips. I am the director of the Digital Theological Library, the nonprofit corporation that owns the Global Digital Theological Library. The mission of the Global Digital Theological Library is to provide a comprehensive library in religious studies to schools in developing nations that have a core part of their mission as religious studies. Let me share screen and show you how the library works. We're glad you are here and interested in the library.
This is how you use it - you go to globaldtl.org and you will see this screen [the home page]. You can simply type in any topic that you are interested in, say, the book of Philippians. [Tom types it into the search bar at the top of the page.] Hit return. When you do then you will see this screen [page of search results]. You can narrow down your search over here [in the left sidebar] if you just want articles or you just want books, if you want most recent content from the last five, ten, twenty-five years, or custom date range. Then if you want to read, say, this item, when you click on it you will get a screen - an authentication screen like this where you will enter the barcode/authorization code we sent to you. And then when you do you will access the content like this. It will often have this "accept cookies", so you hit accept, then you come down here. You can look at the book here. By simply clicking on the download [link], you can download it, you can save it - in this case chapter by chapter. Sometimes you can save the entire book. But if you want to read say on chapter 3 of Philippians - or chapter 4, you would simply click on here and begin to read, or you could download that chapter for yourself.
We also like to show people in the Global Digital Theological Library the Advanced Search function [link to Advanced Search is under the search bar on the Global DTL]. [With] the advanced search you can limit keywords or subjects or subject phrase or title. If you know the ISBN or ISSN of the item you're looking for, if we have it, you can find it in here. And again you can search by format so if you just want books or articles. You can also limit by publication year.
One of the other things we like people to see on the Global DTL is the research aids. If you come over here [the Research Aids page in the main navigation] we have research aids, like Bible Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, that we have limited so you can send your students here or you can come here as a student and look. If you want [a] Bible dictionary, click on this link [Bible Dictionaries and Encyclopedias] and we have these dictionaries. You click on them and they'll open up exactly as earlier. One of the other things we like to show people: Introductory Texts. So if there's a class, say, on hermeneutics, you just click on here and you can read that text, you can assign that text to your students. We have paid fees for this so this is all legal - they can download it, they can print it, that's all entirely legal. Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, various topics here in New Testament.
This has been a very quick overview, intended to be a very quick overview, so thank you for your time and attention. If you have questions, we are happy to talk with you. Thank you. Bye.