{"id":27406,"date":"2014-08-18T09:04:47","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T14:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=27406"},"modified":"2014-08-18T09:04:47","modified_gmt":"2014-08-18T14:04:47","slug":"its-strange-that-the-oldest-literature-becomes-the-model-for-the-digital-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/08\/18\/its-strange-that-the-oldest-literature-becomes-the-model-for-the-digital-age\/","title":{"rendered":"“It\u2019s strange that the oldest literature becomes the model for the digital age”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harvard University Press<\/a> is putting all 520 volumes of the Loeb Classical Library online beginning in September:<\/p>\n

When James Loeb designed his soon-to-be-launched series of Greek and Roman texts at the turn of the twentieth century, he envisioned the production of volumes that could easily fit in readers\u2019 coat pockets. A century later, that compact format is still one of the collection\u2019s hallmarks. Beginning in September, however, the iconic books will be far handier than Loeb had hoped: users of the Loeb Classical Library<\/a> (LCL) will have the entire collection at their fingertips. After five years of dedicated work on the part of the library\u2019s trustees and Harvard University Press<\/a> (HUP), which has overseen LCL since its creator\u2019s death in 1933, the more than 520 volumes of literature that make up the series will be accessible online. Besides allowing users to browse the digitized volumes, which retain the unique side-by-side view of the original text and its English translation, the Digital Loeb Classical Library will enable readers to search for words and phrases across the entire corpus, to annotate content, to share notes and reading lists with others, and to create their own libraries using personal workspaces. <\/p>\n

LCL managing editor Michael Sullivan, whose position was created earlier this year to supervise the virtual library, said that the digitization project is \u201ca major leap forward in the history of the Loeb.\u201d According to HUP executive editor-at-large Sharmila Sen, the launch of the digital LCL marks \u201ca moment of rebirth\u201d for the historic collection. She explained that in the years preceding the library\u2019s 2011 centenary, the trustees and HUP administrators began to think about how to make the LCL \u201crelevant to the twenty-first century.\u201d Even though online databases of Greek and Latin literature have existed for years, said the library\u2019s general editor, Jeffrey Henderson, a classics professor at Boston University, the digital Loeb will be unprecedented in its accessibility and scope: for the first time, readers without knowledge of Greek and Latin will be able to explore a vast range of the classical literary heritage online through high-quality, modern translations. He added that the project, which cost the LCL foundation more than $1 million, will serve as a model for the digitization of other HUP series, noting, \u201cIt\u2019s strange that the oldest literature becomes the model for the digital age.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consolidating a vast literary corpus involving two different alphabets into an interconnected, elegant, and easy-to-use website required much behind-the-scenes work, Sen said. Designing the software for the digital library and transferring the data have concluded, she noted, but the project overseers view the current product \u2014 which will be available by subscription to institutions and individuals \u2014 as only a 1.0 version. The website will be a dynamic workspace, Henderson pointed out, adding that user feedback will help the editors increase its functionality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

H\/T to Colby Cosh for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harvard University Press is putting all 520 volumes of the Loeb Classical Library online beginning in September: When James Loeb designed his soon-to-be-launched series of Greek and Roman texts at the turn of the twentieth century, he envisioned the production of volumes that could easily fit in readers\u2019 coat pockets. A century later, that compact […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,1526,7,28],"tags":[58,561],"class_list":["post-27406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-greece","category-history","category-media","tag-internet","tag-rome"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-782","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27407,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27406\/revisions\/27407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}