Catalogue help
(1) Which catalogues can I access via the VThK?
(2) How do I search in the VThK meta-catalogue?
(3) Articles, conjunctions, wild cards, etc.
(4) Search Terms
(5) Settings and options
(6) Where can I get further information?
(1) Which catalogues can I access via the VThK?
You can find a complete list of the catalogues here List of all catalogues.
(2) How do I search in the VThK meta-catalogue?
You can search the collections of scholarly religious libraries or theological
collections in libraries of state universities or other state libraries, all in
German-speaking countries. Here are some search tips:
(2.1) Standard search
Select one or more of the following subject areas (the gray subject areas cannot be
accessed at the present time):
- Theology / Philosophy
- Pastoral Theology / Ministry of Religious Education
- Missionary work
- Social Sciences / Diakonia
- Spirituality / Spirituality of Religious Orders
- Specialized Areas of Research
- Multidisciplinary Union Catalogues
Click on the info-icon 
to get further information about the respective library.
(2.2) Post Code Regions
Wählen die PLZ-Bereiche aus, in denen sie suchen wollen.
Sie können die PLZ-Bereich auch durch Klicken auf die Karte markieren.
Durch Klicken auf das Info-Symbol erfahren Sie, in welchen Bibliotheken jeweils gesucht wird.
(2.3) Church Regions
Select the dioceses, archdioceses, or established regional (Protestant) churches you
are interested in. Click on the info-icon next to the names of the dioceses/established
regional (Protestant) churches to see which catalogues will be accessed. Libraries of
autonomous institutions are assigned to the respective geographical regions.
(2.4) More Catalogues
These catalogues cannot be accessed via the VThk. You can search individually in their
catalogs by clicking on the name of the library.
(3) Articles, conjunctions, wild cards, etc.
- Articles, conjunctions
Omit articles and conjunctions such as "der, die, das, the, and, und, etc."
- Wild cards / Truncation
Use ? at the end of a word for variations in word endings. (Some catalogues will
truncate automatically in the author field)
- Waiting Times
Catalogues require varying amounts of time before they show their search results.
If the catalogue being searched doesn't reply, the search will be terminated after 3
minutes. This is generally the cause of long waiting times. In this case, please
let us know.
- How complete are the results of searches?
Please keep in mind that online catalogues don't include all the books in a library's
collection. Generally you can rely on finding results for searches in literature of
the past 10-20 years.
(4) Search Terms
- Title
The Title search allows you to enter several words from the title or subtitle of the book. They
will be automatically combined with the Boolean AND.
- Author
The Author search allows you to search for an author, editor, or anyone involved in
the publication. For an efficient author search, please enter the author's complete
family name followed by a comma and then by the complete first name, for example:
"Mueller, Uwe".
- Organisation (Corporate Author)
The Organisation search allows you to look for associations, organizations, government
agencies, clubs, institutes, colleges, universities, congresses, companies, states,
cities, administrative bodies, conference names. If you get zero results, try entering
these names in the title field.
- Subject
The Subject search allows you to look for materials about a precise topic, using a
list of controlled vocabulary knows as "subject headings". You cannot use subject
strings as subject headings.
- Date of publ.
The Date of publ. search allows you to search for the year in which a work was published.
- ISBN
The ISBN search allows you to search for the International Standard Book Number of a
publication. The ISBN consists of ten numbers. You need not enter the hyphens when
searching for the ISBN.
- ISSN
The ISSN search allows you to search for the International
Standard Serial Number of
a publication. Newspapers, periodicals, serials, etc. generally all have ISSN. The
ISBN consists of eight numbers.
- Publisher
The Publisher search allows you to search for the publisher of a publication. In some
VThK catalogues it is not possible to search for publishers.
(5) Settings and Options
- Save/load settings
You can save your preferred catalogue selection and the "unsorted/sorted" setting and
load them again whenever you want. Depending on the search page, you can select and
save a combination of individual catalogues (standard search), postal code regions or
church regions. If you have saved your preferred settings, they will be loaded
automatically whenever you access a VThK search page. For Save/Load settings you must
enable cookies and JavaScript.
- Sorted hit list
At the end of the hit list you can have a cumulative list of all the abbreviated
titles in alphabetical order. Titles published as part of a series are not shown
here. In all catalogues titles published as part of a series are shown in the full
title format of the series and are included in the lists of results of the individual
catalogues. A structural analysis for transforming these full titles into their
component individual titles is beyond the means of the VThK.
- JavaScript and Cookies
Important: To use the VThK, you must have JavaScript and Cookies enabled.
(6) Where can I get further information?
If you have any questions, please send an e-mail to:
Prof. Dr. Siegfried Schmidt, telephone **49-(0)221/1642-3781,
Dombibliothek@erzbistum-koeln.de
Armin Stephan, telephone **49-(0)9874/509-300,
Armin.Stephan@augustana.de
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