E-Books – Covenant’s growing e-book collection is accessible anywhere and includes some biblical commentaries in addition to academic titles from a variety of fields of study.

Covenant Library Catalog – Although you may not live close enough to the Covenant Seminary library to visit us in person, our catalog is a powerful research tool for finding high quality books. Our collection is maintained by a staff of theological librarians and is designed to serve the diverse needs of students studying theology, Bible, counseling, and education.

WorldCat – To broaden your search to a worldwide scale, search the world's largest library catalog—WorldCat. Combining the catalogs of nearly every library in the United States and many libraries around the world into one database, WorldCat will track down the book that you’re looking for and find it in a library near you.

Research in Ministry (RIM) – Looking for dissertations specifically? RIM is a catalog of doctoral dissertations from seminaries and divinity schools in the United States and Canada, including Covenant. Covenant’s more recent dissertations are available online through our catalog. Similarly, for dissertations from other schools, check for access through the school’s catalog or digital repository. Otherwise, dissertations can be requested through interlibrary loan.

Using the Covenant Seminary Library

Covenant’s Digital Loan service allows students outside the St. Louis area to request books from the Library’s print collection and get online access to a digital copy for a fixed check-out period. See our guide to Digital Loan to learn more.

If you just need a single chapter or essay from a book, you can use the Interlibrary Loan / Scan Request form to get a scan sent to you.

In addition, whenever you're in St. Louis, you’re welcome to check out books from the Library. Books check out for 4 weeks and can be renewed twice by phone or online for an additional 4 weeks each time. That's up to 12 weeks total. When the books are due back you can simply pack them up carefully in a box and mail them back to us.

Using a Local Seminary or College Library

Covenant is a member of two reciprocal borrowing networks: the Atla Reciprocal Borrowing Program and the Association of Christian Librarians (ACL) Reciprocal Borrowing Program. Through these programs, Covenant students are entitled to on-site borrowing privileges at any participating library. Check the maps below to see if there is a participating library near you.

• Atla Reciprocal Borrowing Program. Loan policies and ID requirements vary by library, so use the contact information provided to find out more before you visit. The library you visit will likely need to contact the Covenant library in order to verify your enrollment before you can check out books, so anticipate a 24-hour waiting period.
• ACL Reciprocal Borrowing Program. Contact the Covenant library to obtain a signed authorization form before you visit a library.

Atla Reciprocal Borrowing Map ACL Reciprocal Borrowing Map

Using Your Local Public Library

Although your local public library may not have a finely honed theology section, it is still a valuable resource for your research needs. Libraries like to share, so any book that you need can most likely be obtained by your public library through Interlibrary Loan—usually at no or little cost. Just take the complete citation (title, author, publisher, date, etc.) to the Reference Librarian and ask about requesting the item through Interlibrary Loan. Be aware, however, that an Interlibrary Loan request can take up to two weeks to arrive in most places, so put your requests in early.

Tips and Suggestions

• Ask about ILL at your library's reference desk, not at the circulation desk (the place where you check out your books). The reference librarians are typically the ones who handle ILL requests for the library.
• If your local library is part of a library system (e.g., a county-wide public library with several branches), take your requests to the Headquarters or Main Branch. The headquarters is usually the hub through which your ILL items will travel, and it can sometimes take as long for an item to make its way between the headquarters and your branch as it does for the item to get to the headquarters from the lending library. The staff at the headquarters may also be more knowledgeable about the various services that are available to you.
• Introduce yourself to the librarian that handles ILL at your library. Explain who you are and what you are doing and ask what would make it easier for them. Even this small attempt to get to know them will put a face with your name and often will bring better service from your library.