The Swanton Library is named after Rev Dr Robert Swanton who, after the organisation of the Theological Hall in 1975, was appointed Acting Principal until 1977 and Principal 1978-81. Coming out of retirement, Dr Swanton led the College for its first seven years. On his death in 1992 he left a generous legacy to the College to help fund the library and the work of the Reformed Theological Review which he helped to initiate.
The Swanton Library has a collection of around 37,000 items, with additional books constantly coming in through gift or purchase. Monetary donations are tax-deductible. The donation of theological books is always welcome – contact the library for more information, or simply bring books to the college (books not needed for the library will be passed on freely to students – always a highlight of their college experience).
There is a constantly growing Chinese collection, including reference and general books, and ebooks and journals. All Chinese language titles can be searched on the library catalogue.
Books are catalogued using the Pettee classification scheme. The Library receives over 120 periodicals and has an extensive collection of e-books and DVDs.
Students have a right of access (though not borrowing rights) to all the theological libraries in Melbourne.
Mondays – Fridays: 9am – 5pm
Weekends & public holidays: Closed
03 9898 9872
Up to 15 books may be borrowed at a time for a period of three weeks.
Books may be renewed twice.
Books are to be borrowed and returned through the self-service system at the entrance of the library
The library operates on an honour system. No late fees are charged.
Please ask the librarian for any assistance.
All students have free access to many journals and e-books through EBSCO.
The EBSCO religious serials database is provided by the American Theological Library Assosciation (ATLA) and gives access to the full or partial text of all leading theological journals.
The EBSCO e-book collection is quickly growing, providing greater convenience to students and lowering out-of-pocket costs.
On-campus students accessing EBSCO onsite will be logged in automatically. For off-campus access, students can log into their library accounts (library.ptc.edu.au) and follow the instructions there. Once logged in, students can create a personal account, which need renewing every year.
Perlego has an extensive collection of online books and is an exceptional resource for students, especially for online students with limited access to physical libraries.
Licences are available to currently enrolled credit students at PTC.
PTC provides free of charge to students a specially curated package of the Logos Bible software (Ts and Cs apply). This includes more than 20 key texts used in units at PTC.
Most units, whether delivered on or off campus, have a unit area in PTC Online, which will provide a unit bibliography.
See the Assessment resources page for essay guides and information on plagiarism and referencing. Also see the apps and IT page for essay writing apps.
The ‘English writing and Grammar Skills’ unit is offered in February and is free for all students. The recordings and resources are automatically added as a unit in PTConline to all students.
See Apps and IT for more resources. Endnote, a bibliography program, is free for PTC students. Grammarly is available for free to postgraduate research students.
The State Library of Victoria offers free access to many journals, databases, and e-books including:
JSTOR: millions of scholarly articles on all subjects (the Religion section currently has 137 journals and over 5000 books available)
ProQuest: the world’s largest multidisciplinary full-text database (includes a Religion database with 250 full-text journals)
The National Library of Australia provides free access to many online resources, including:
Early English Books Online (EEBO): an indispensable resource for historical studies on that period.
Google provides several specialised services for students beyond the standard search:
Google Books: if you can’t find what you’re looking for on a specialised database, try Google Books, the world’s most comprehensive index of full-text books.
Google Scholar: search over 100 million peer-reviewed academic journals, books, conference papers and theses. Includes option to save articles for easy reference.
Training for the Kingdom of Heaven
Training for the Kingdom of Heaven