 |
 |
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture in a bit of random mucking about on the PTC site, i find that Mixed Blessings abound (which, i suppose, is why it's the Theological Commons rather than the Secular Commons). for instance, a search for Hefele's _Histoire des conciles d'après les documents originaux_ turns up something that looks a bit like this: http://commons.ptsem.edu/?qtext=title%3aHistoire+title%3ades+title%3aconciles+title%3ad%27apr%C3%A8s+title%3ales+title%3adocuments+title%3aoriginaux+sort%3atitle&start=1 i.e., lots of nice hits on the title (54, though there are only about a baker's dozen vols. to the thing), all conveniently with the same date (1907) and **not a single one** with a volume number. curiously enough, a search for the same title (specifically *by title*) on http://archive.org/ yields a grotesque 74 hits --many duplicates and all arranged in no particularly discernible order-- but there we at least do have the vol. numbers given (who knows, maybe even reliably!): search.php?query=title%3A%28Histoire%20des%20conciles%20d%27apr%C3%A8s%20les%20documents%20originaux%20%29 Ditto a search for the journal "Revue de l'art chrétien": http://commons.ptsem.edu/?keywords=Revue+de+l%27art+chr%C3%A9tien&x=15&y=18&submit=true&scope=title which yields 14 hits, none with a vol. number, but all with the convenient date of "1857" (i.e., the date of the founding of the journal --an important thing to know if you happen to be looking for a specific vol. [though i doubt if the 1857 vol. itself is actually among the hits there]). otOh, an archive.org search yields a somewhat more cumbersome 110 hits, but the volumes are identified (who knows, perhaps even correctly!) by either year or vol. number (with many, many duplications): http://archive.org/search.php?query=title%3A%28Revue%20de%20l%27art%20chr%C3%A9tien%29 in other words, the Princetons didn't even bother to copy the metadata already available on the archive.org site [DUH!]. the latter has an excuse for its crumby metadata, since they are frequently dependent on what hapless, illiterate nerds at Google send them. raising the question of what, eggsactly, is the Princetons' excuse? "At least we're not Harvard"? having Ranted thusly, i might say (out of long-suffering Christian Kindness, if not Gnostic Buddhist Compassion) that it looks like all of the items on the Princeton site are in a different .pdf format than those found on books.google --i.e., one which is *vastly* easier to use, downloadable and clearer for reading purposes (should anyone desire to actually *read* these things, rather than just wanting to know if they are, en pricipe, On Line). however, since it appears that everything on the PTC site is available on archive.org --with *much* better metadata and a *much* superior search capability-- i'd say that the Princetons' middleman site should be thoroughly Eschewed in favor of the archive.org original. c ------ Original Message ------ Received: Fri, 23 Mar 2012 09:31:49 AM EDT From: Christopher Crockett <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [M-R] Princeton Theological Commons > medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture > > From: James Ginther <[log in to unmask]> > > > Your assessment is really spot on. The metadata is really, really poor and > this will hamper any useful searching of their collection. > > > well, who needs to be able to actually *find* anything on the site? > > after all, the only thing that is important is that the book you are looking > for *may*, indeed, be there --and it is, therefore, there "en principe," so > quit your Bitchin & Moanin. > > >What is really needed is some sort of crowdsourcing tool that could assist in > cataloguing such resources for medieval studes. > > that, or perhaps someone involved in setting the database up who is possessed > of a functioning Mammalian Neo-Cortex > > http://ariadne.org/cc/images/brain1.gif > > once again the confluence of Lieberry Scientists and illiterate 'puter Nerds > trumps Western Civilization as we once Knew and Loved it. > > c > > > On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 11:57 PM, Paul Chandler < > > [log in to unmask]> wrote: > > >> Listmembers may be interested in the recently-launched Theological Commons > initiative jointly undertaken by Princeton Theological Seminary and the > Internet Archive. It presently has digital editions of some 50,000 books > (about 4,000 of them pre-1800), including many items of interest for the > med-rel area. > > >> The scans--or so it seems from a quick browse--appear to be fairly high > >> quality. Unfortunately, as is common for many such sites, the metadata is > rather bare-bones and makes it difficult to locate individual parts of > multi-volume sets. > > >> Our librarians and experts may have more knowledgeable comments. It's > certainly worth exploring: <http://commons.ptsem.edu/!@#?>[log in to unmask] -- Paul > > ********************************************************************** > To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME > to: [log in to unmask] > To send a message to the list, address it to: > [log in to unmask] > To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion > to: [log in to unmask] > In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: > [log in to unmask] > For further information, visit our web site: > http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html