Subject Guides: Latter-day Saint Movement Studies: Background

Philosophy and Church History/Doctrine Librarian

Contact:

Click the button to set up a short research consultation with me or feel free to email me your questions. I will help in whatever way I can!
gerrit_vandyk@byu.edu

Subjects: Religion & Philosophy

Historical Context

Use these resouces to discover the background and historical context of a revelation, issue, or event in Church history.

Oxford Handbook of Mormonism Articles and bibliographies by prominent scholars on major topics in Church history, practice, and theology.
Encyclopedia of Mormonism Online The Wiki Version of Macmillan’s 1992 Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Use this for backgound information and bibliographies on topics, events, and people in Mormonism. Contains additions and updates by BYU Studies.
Doctrine and Covenants Background A short list of resources for finding background information on a section in the D&C.
History of Mormon Practice Bibliography Independent website devoted to documenting sources on the growth of Mormon concepts such as baptism, healing, cursing, and other rituals.

Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) This link opens in a new window Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) is a database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. Find over 1,200 entries in a variety of reference resources on Mormon topics.
GospeLink (First-time Users Only - must create account) This link opens in a new window Only available on campus. Requires creating individual logins but it is free for all BYU patrons. GospeLink contains over 3,000 works including scriptures, reference works, LDS periodicals, works by General Authorities, works by Mormons and for Latter-day Saints, and a World Classics library.

GospeLink.com (All users except for first-time users) Currently only available on campus, GospeLink contains over 3,000 works including scriptures, sermons, conference talks, commentaries, reference works, periodicals, and historical works. LDS.org content can also be searched here. From on campus, use previously created login here.
Mormonr A popular website tracking sources related to various trending topics in Latter-day Saint studies.

Biographies

Use these resources to find biographical information about an individual from Church history.

LDS Biographical Encyclopedia Collected around 1900, the biographies detail the lives of many LDS men and women in four volumes.
Mormons and Their Neighbors An index to 100,000 biographies on Mormons located in over 200 sources in the Harold B. Lee Library. Compiled by former librarian, Marvin E. Wiggins. ****Scroll down to the Data Files section of the page and select the .xlsx file to see all of the references.
Guide to Mormon Diaries and Autobiographies Jump to the catalog record for this book.
History of Utah: Biographical Volume Contains numerous biographical sketches of 19th century LDS leaders.
Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah The author has collected nearly six thousand photographs of Utah pioneers (before 1869) and other prominent early members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a separate section are included brief biographical and genealogical sketches of these men and many more from the same era.
Joseph Smith Papers Online: People Brief biographical sketches for selected persons mentioned in Joseph Smith’s papers. Names listed in this directory include church leaders and members, Smith family members, people Joseph Smith encountered in his travels, parties involved in legal and business matters, and other acquaintances.
List of Latter-day Saints Wikipedia article listing Latter Day Saints who have attained at least some level of fame and/or success in a variety of professions. This list includes adherents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon), as well as adherents of related denominations (as labeled).
BYU Library Books: Church President Biographies
A list of books at BYU with biographies on presidents of the LDS Church.
BYU Library Books: Latter-day Saint Biographies
A list of books at BYU with biographies on Latter-day Saints.

Speeches and Quotes

Use these resources to find quotes from Church members and authorities on topics or scriptural passages.

LDS General Conference Corpus “This website allows you to quickly and easily search talks from General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This corpus (or collection of texts) contains 24 million words in 10,000 talks from 1851 to the present.”
Recent General Conference Talks (1971-Present) Official Church archive of General Conference talks back to 1971.
Conference Reports (1899-1970) Since 1899, the Church has published official reports of its annual (April) and semiannual (October) General Conferences, commonly called Conference Reports. These reports are distributed in booklet form only to Church leaders (bishoprics and higher), Church employees, and libraries.
Journal of Discourses Online Sermons of the LDS Church authorities from 1853 to 1886. It was published in Liverpool, England. Select "Advanced Search" in order to search by keyword across the speeches.
BYU Speeches BYU Speeches from 1949 to the present. Includes transcripts, audio, and video.
Mormon Texts Project A list of 19th and early 20th century texts written by LDS members and general authorities.

Scripture Commentaries

Use these resources to discover what scholars and general authorities have written about a particular scriptural passage.

Scripture Citation Index This index links from scriptures to the general conference talks that cite those scriptures in LDS General Conference between 1942 and the present. You can sort the citation index by scripture (the default), by speaker, or by date of citation.
Book of Mormon Central Website that seeks to explain features and figures in the Book of Mormon from a position of belief.
BYU Library Books: Book of Mormon Commentaries A list of books at BYU with commentaries on the Book of Mormon.
BYU Library Books: Doctrine and Covenants Commentaries A list of books at BYU with commentaries on the Doctrine and Covenants
BYU Library Books: New Testament Commentaries A list of books at BYU with commentaries on the New Testament.
BYU Library Books: Old Testament Commentaries A list of books at BYU with commentaries on the Old Testament.
BYU Library Books: Pearl of Great Price Commentaries A list of books at BYU with commentaries on the Pearl of Great Price.

Related Research Guides

Biblical Studies
This redirects to the research guide and librarian for Biblical Studies.
Religion
This redirects to the research guide and librarian for World Religions.