Packard Humanities Institute Databases and Accordance

[yancywsmith]

I am wondering if anyone has used the TLG import feature to import and manage the PHI databases of Greek Papyri and Inscriptions?

[Joe Weaks]

I am wondering if anyone has used the TLG import feature to import and manage the PHI databases of Greek Papyri and Inscriptions?

Yancy,

I know that the PHI Greek texts are accented in beta code, but are they also formatted using the same formatting codes as TLG?

What source would you want to use... the current public website, or do you have access to a CD with the raw text? I'm assuming not, otherwise you would've just given it a try.

 

I lived on campus at TCU when Accordance added the TLG import option and checked out the CD from the library to import texts, and I sure was happy to switch from using Pandora!

[Rick Bennett]

I am wondering if anyone has used the TLG import feature to import and manage the PHI databases of Greek Papyri and Inscriptions?

 

Yes, I've imported some of the texts from the PHI 7.0 CD. However, its not an ideal import. The titles don't seem to import correctly. Its something that I've mentioned, and will hopefully be looked at in the future.

 

For now the best option, which I assume you've used, is the web based search engine for the inscriptions:

http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/search_main.html

 

And for the Papyri:

http://ldpddev.cul.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/ddbdp/ddbdp.pl

 

The latter is the Duke Databank, but hosted by Columbia. It is much more stable to search, but doesn't include hyperlinks to LSJ.

 

Here's a SS to show you what the import looks like as a user tool:

 

[yancywsmith]

Thanks for the reply.

 

I have the CD's in question. BTW, you can request a free liscense to use them in scholarly pursuits from Packard Humanities Institute. I use the websites as well. At present the best reader available for free is Diogenes, which functions accross platforms (including Mac). It also features free access to the look up tool data base and LSJ database from Perseus. While the searches are more limited in Diogenes than, say, in Antiquarium or Silver Mountain's Workplace, the fact that it is free and links to LSJ on your computer is astounding. But I like my tools to be integrated and thought that having TLG, PHI and all the rest of my cool tools in Accordance would be out of sight (in the 1960's sense). This capability is highly desirable for people like me who often have to travel where internet is not readily available. (Say, on a plane or in Africa). I tried importing PHI 7 texts into my Accordance 7.4.1 as a user tool running on my PC and it failed several times. I have not tried it on my G5. I have to live on the dark side because my office is PC. Of course the issue is a display font problem. The papyrus and inscription fonts have a lot of extra characters (as your Screen Shot demonstrates) that TLG does not have and that Accordance proprietary fonts do not handle properly. Lamentably, integration remains, for the time being, out of sight.

 

Since the structure of the databases is very similar, this would be something that could interest classicists in Accordance and might not be too difficult to achieve. I have found that TLG titles are also an issue in the TLG import and are often mishandled when brought into Accordance. As a matter of fact, I don't think I have ever imported a file from TLG in which the titles were handled properly, but I have never mentioned the issue.