About
The Latter-day Saint Literature database is a scholarly resource of literary writings about Latter-day Saints. It is intended to serve students, scholars, and library patrons searching for literature about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or its members. Some of the included works were written by Latter-day Saints, but not all. Works written by Latter-day Saints but with little to no Church-related content or themes are generally not included. The database provides bibliographic data for Church-related works in literary genres such as novels, short stories, poetry, memoires, and drama going back to the nineteenth century. Most material included in the database has been published by a commercial or Church-sponsored press, magazine, or journal. Subject tags are included for all entries, and many entries include abstracts and links to the full text. The database also contains references to some Latter-day Saint films.
Researchers should be able to find entries for literature which engages any topic related to the Church or its members by searching this database.
The database began in 2002 under the direction of Gideon Burton, BYU English professor, and in collaboration with several BYU librarians. Burton stepped away from the project and various librarians, including Robert Means, Julie Williams, Janet Bradford, Kjerste Christensen, Kayla Willey, and Christine Ramsey, maintained the database over the years. In 2020 Gerrit van Dyk assumed editorial stewardship over the database. From that time keyword describers and abstracts were routinely added to entries in the database as well as links to the digitized work where available. In 2024, the database was renamed Latter-day Saint Literature.
Since 2020, the following students have made significant contributions to this database, serving as lead students for lengthy periods: Jonathan Peters, Madeline Olsen, and Alexandria Libberton.
Additionally, the following students have also contributed to the database: Leah Darby, Grant Rasmussen, Jenny Kim, Cadence Potter, Patricia Evans, Gillian Byrd, Sariah Roulstone, David Johnson, Porter Kindall, Josie Mumford, and Jane Winward.
LDSL is updated daily. Suggestions, corrections, and additions can be emailed to Gerrit van Dyk at saintsdbs@byu.edu.