Researching the humanities online

by Jonah Winters

General Searching

1. An excellent starting point is Planet Bahá'í, the new home of what was originally the about.com Bahá'í directory. This site includes a wide range of links listed by topic, as well as weekly featured articles, a Bahá'í chat room, a forum, and a newsletter.
   
   
2. This section used to list a number of search engines and discuss the merits of each. Those days are over.
   
   
3. There are also a number of dictionaries, encyclopedias, and thesauri available online. Start with academicinfo.net/ref.html.

   Library Searching

4. The best online Library in the world is of course the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov. They have an amazingly large online catalogue, and a number of different kinds of search functions at lcweb.loc.gov/catalog, from the simple to the very advanced.
   
   
5. To find the contents of other libraries, both public, private, and institutional, see the catalogue of libraries at staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/breeding/libwebcats.html

   General Humanities Resources

6. The main directory/metadirectory for all things on the Internet is of course www.yahoo.com, but they only catalogue a limited number of academic sites. The best metadirectory for general academic research, from the humanities to science to politics, is the WWW Virtual Library, whose start page is at www.vlib.org. From here one links to topic-specific directories, each hosted by a private volunteer. The Bahá'í component of the WWW Virtual Library is run by Casper Voogt and can be found at www.bcca.org/~cvoogt/Religion (note the capital 'R'), a subsection of his main page, http://www.bcca.org/~cvoogt
   
   
7. The best directory that I know of for academic resources is Academic Info, at academicinfo.net. This site also features a number of good reference materials, from information about online libraries to using search engines, at academicinfo.net/ref.html. The Bahá'í section is academicinfo.net/Bahai.html (note capital "B").
   
   

   Islamic materials

8. There are a number of good Muslim sites, starting with academicinfo.net/Islam.html (note capital "I"). The primary Sunni site, wings.buffalo.edu/student-life/sa/muslim/isl/isl.html, and the primary Shi'i site, www.al-islam.org, both contain a large collection of scriptures, articles, and resources. www.quran.org.uk is a collection of materials on the Qur'an, from articles to audio samples of recitation, and seven translations of the Qur'an (by M.H. Shakir, Abduallah Yusuf Ali, Maulvi Sher Ali, Dr. Muhsin Khan and Dr. Muhammad Al-Hilali, Marmaduke Pickthall, and T.B. Irving, E.H. Palmer). Finally, the USC Muslim Students Association includes text search engines: you can search the Qur'an at www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/reference/searchquran.html and hadith at www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/reference/searchhadith.html. Qur'ans and hadith are also at wings.buffalo.edu/sa/muslim/isl/texts.html. One might also find useful the three-in-one translation at qurantrans.bizland.com, which includes Pickthall, Shakir and Yusuf Ali with the latter's notes; one can switch from one to another by clicking on a link to the other two at the end of each verse.
   
   One might also find the reference material in the Dictionary of Islamic Philosophical Terms of use.