What's New in Papyrology

Recent publications of papyri & ostraca 4th BC-8th AD; conferences, lectures etc. from Papy-L and other sources as noted. PLEASE SEND SUGGESTIONS

Sunday, December 04, 2011

Updates to papyri.info searches for DDbDP

(1) By now you will have noticed that we have rolled out the new search interface. This is an entirely new way of doing search and will take some getting used to.



Go to http://papyri.info/search . The search screen is divided into two parts. Search results appear on the right and search filters appear on the left.
The primary difference between the old and the new is that rather than coming up with a single search query that aims to give you exactly what you want, it is now possible to begin with a more open-ended search and successively narrow and expand it until you reach a desired end.

So, let's say your class is interested in literacy. Run an initial search for #αγραμματ: enter #αγραμματ in the search box or select "Convert from betacode as you type" and enter #agrammat (by the way, this is a good option if you want to run searches from your smartphone, which probably does not have Unicode Greek); click 'Search'. This will give you words beginning with αγραμματ (# indicates a boundary; you will not find διαγρραμματ). You get 446 hits--too many to show your class.
You select (toward the bottom) "Show only records with images from:" / "Papyri.info" and click 'Go'. This will narrow your found set down to the 16 texts that contain a word beginning with αγραμματ and are known (via APIS) to Papyri.info. 


But there must be more: HGV knows about a great many links to other sites (external to papyri.info). So, you select "Other sites" and 'Go'. Now you have 221 records for which some digital image is known, whether via APIS or HGV.




Add "Print publications" and you will see that papyri.info knows of a total of 337 texts that have *some* image associated with them, whether digital or print.


Your class is working on texts from the first 2 centuries CE. So, you set "Date on or after" at "1 CE" and "Date on or before" to "200 CE" and click Go. That's 45 hits. 


The classroom where you are teaching has digital projection, but no access to books. So, you *remove* the "Print images exist" filter by clicking it away from the top of the right side of your screen. That's 28 hits; you can actually look at several of these in class.


Etc. at Digital Papyrology