The Monte Carlo approach to borrowing books

Everyone knows that libraries lend books.  Some people know that you can borrow books not in the local library via an inter-library loan.  A few people know that you can borrow books from the national library this way, or get photocopies of journal articles.

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Sometimes it’s worth pushing the envelope a bit.  Today I’ve rolled the dice to see what I can get.  I’ve placed an order for volume 1 of Abbeloos 1872 edition of Bar Hebraeus Chronicon Ecclesiasticum.  Will it arrive, I wonder?

The book itself is the most recent publication of this 13th century Syriac text, which has an entry on all the important figures of the Syriac church up to that time.  It comes with a Latin translation.  No translation into any modern language exists, yet it is the foundation of all our knowledge of Syriac literature.  It’s pretty old, now, and hard to get hold of.  It’s a prime candidate for reprinting and for Archive.org.

https://pittsburghpfs.com/get-stromectol-over-the-counter/

There are a few copies around; it isn’t that rare a book, although copies never seem to come up for sale online.  Abbeloos died in 1906, so the book is out of copyright everywhere.  But the problem is whether any library will allow anyone to take a book of that age home; whether any library that holds it will lend it.  I don’t know; but let’s see!

Usually I ask for books which I can borrow.  I don’t believe that anyone will lend me this book for use at home.  But possibly some liberal university will loan it “for use in library only”.  This isn’t helpful, of course, unless I can take my scanner into the library and do the necessary there.  I’ve asked for permission; we’ll see if that is forthcoming.

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Why stick to the well-beaten path, after all?  Let’s go for the burn!

PS: See the comments; it turns out that volume 1 is on Google Books, albeit inaccessible outside the USA.

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Early Islamic description of Antioch

I mentioned earlier that an early Islamic description of ancient Antioch was published by I. Guidi, ‘una descrizione araba di Antiocheia’, Rendiconti della R. Accademia dei Lincei, Cl. di scienze morali, storiche e filolgiche, ser. 5, vol 6, pp. 137-161 (1897).  It’s only 24 pages, half of which at least is an Italian translation.  I wistfully wondered what a translation from the Arabic might cost.

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Christopher Ecclestone has been in touch.  It seems that an unpublished English translation exists, done by William Stinespring in 1932 as part of a PhD thesis!  He went on to be professor of Divinity at Duke University for years, but never published it.  I don’t know what the copyright position on it is, but I hope that someone has put it the web somewhere.

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In addition I learn that one of Archbishop Laud’s manuscripts — isn’t it odd how scholarly bishops are often persecutors? — in the Bodleian Library in Oxford contains a different and longer recension of the same text.  A Syriac original is posited; but read for yourself!

An Armenian text is examined by Clara Ten Hacken, which draws on the same material, and there is also an article by Margoulioth about it.

https://hopehouseclinic.org/ambien-zolpidem-online/

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An open letter to the Ambrosian Library in Milan

I have today written to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, as follows.

Dear Sir,

I believe that Notre Dame University in the USA have a set of microfilms of the manuscript collection of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana:

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http://medieval.library.nd.edu/resources/ambrosiana_mss.shtml

But they say that “Notre Dame is no longer able to supply microfilms or photographs from the Ambrosiana. Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi, Prefect of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, has stipulated that all such requests be sent directly to the library.” (and in writing on paper).

Is this true?  If it is true, may I ask why?  It makes the library look bad.

I went to your website, which is in Italian only.  Few English-speakers know Italian well.  I was unable to find any way to order copies of manuscripts.  I was unable to find any manuscripts online.

This is the age of the internet.  Surely it is morally wrong to make it difficult for scholars to access manuscripts?

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Yours sincerely,

Roger Pearse

It would be unfair to criticise a library without giving them the chance to respond, of course.  It will be interesting to see if I get a reply. 

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A curious problem with discussing Islam online

The number of threats to freedom of speech online seems to increase daily; far more than I can reasonably blog about here, on a blog dedicated to patristics and manuscript studies.  So I try to discuss only really important stuff.  By chance I came across this post, which contained the following statement:

My video IS classified as hate speech. At least, that’s what thousands of Muslims said whilst flooding YouTube with constant “flagging.” In case you haven’t yet heard, there are actual online Muslim networks that exist solely for this purpose. The minute anything even remotely critical of Islam pops up online, thousands of members are notified and are commanded to flag, spam and utilize comment suppression techniques that ultimately result in the video’s removal and permanent banning of the user. The frightening part is that their “Denial of Service” tactics are devastatingly effective, extremely covert and easily mobilized.

Is this right?  Is all online discussion of Islam taking place under an unreported threat of this kind of intimidation?

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95% of UK ISP’s implementing censorship machinery

From slashdot.org:

“The UK government stated in 2006 that they wished to see 100% of UK consumer broadband ISPs’ connections covered by blocking, which includes” — but is not limited to — “images of child abuse. 95% of ISPs have complied, but children’s charities are calling for firmer action by the government as the last 5% cite costs and concerns over the effectiveness of the system. According to Home Office Minister Alan Campbell, ‘The government is currently looking at ways to progress the final 5%.’ With a lack of transparency in the IWF list, firm government involvement, and blocking that only ‘includes’ (but may not be limited to) images of child abuse, it looks like the writing is on the wall for unfiltered, uncensored Internet connections in the UK.”

It will soon be 100%, it seems, with the IWF – an unelected quango – deciding which sites may be accessed from the UK.  No-one wants child porn on the web, of course.  But child-porn is the excuse, not the reason.  What this gives the establishment — not even the elected government, for heaven’s sake! — is the power to block sites they don’t like, without appeal or control or, indeed, even our knowledge.

Now that the establishment has a list of sites which every ISP is blocking, how long before entries in it are added for political reasons?  That sites which are (e.g.) seen to be politically incorrect are added?

I give it two years at most.

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Biblia Patristica now online

Want to know where a verse of scripture is referenced in the Fathers?  The answer has always been the Biblia Patristica volumes.  These are now embedded in BIBLIndex, and so accessible to us all.  Well done, chaps!  (Thanks to Ben Blackwell for publicizing this).

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Asterix, manuscripts, and the Bibliothèque Nationale Français

In Asterix and the Normans, the Gauls encounter the Normans, who know no fear but would like to.  They are invited to listen to the village bard, the aptly named Cacafonix.  After his first number, the Normans look pained.  “By Thor!” says one; “By Odin!” another; “Bite on the bullet!” says a third.  A few more numbers, and they run!  Recommended, actually, this one.

What brought this on, I hear you cry?  Well, I want to get images of a manuscript of the History of the Arabic Christian historian, Al-Makin.  The British Library let me down when I ordered some from them, so I’ve asked the BNF in Paris for help.  The invoice arrived today.  For Ms. Arabe 294 and 295, total number of pages 648, the price is going to be…. 234 euros!  OUCH!

I’ve paid it anyway.  I have to have it to progress.  But this is serious money.  Each page costs 26c from the first ms and (mysteriously) 36c from the second.  But of course it hardly costs that much to make these copies. It certainly doesn’t cost a different amount for each of the two halves! Greed, I fear, is responsible for this bill. And all these images, I suspect, will be low quality monochrome. It’s enough to make any digital camera owner spit!

I know that I have banged on about this before, but this is serious stuff.  The medieval manuscripts are the raw stuff of scholarship on all ancient texts.  If we can’t access the dratted things — and a bill of 234 euros per manuscript is no different to refusing access, for most people — then we can’t work.  This is particularly bad for unpublished texts, which means most of Arabic Christian and Syriac and Armenian and…

The fact is that these institutions are making money off this.  Come on, you scholars; clamp down on it!

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Revue de l’Orient Chretien on Google books

A bunch of these are available here.

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Cramer’s Catena online at Archive.org

You can download all the volumes of Cramer’s catena from here.  Thanks to this blog for the tip!

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Abu Al-Majdalus, “Commentary on the Nicene Creed” – now online

Some months ago I obtained images of two manuscripts from the Oriental Library at St. Joseph University in Beirut, containing a 15th century and 18th century text of the Commentary on the Nicene Creed of the 10th century Arabic Christian writer, al-Majdalus.  I then commissioned Samuel Noble to transcribe and translate this work into English.

The transcription and translation are now online, and may be downloaded in Word format from here.  I place them both in the public domain — do whatever you like with them.  At the weekend I will reformat them into HTML and place that in my collection of additional Fathers.

An article here by Dr. Khalil Samir gives background info on the text.  My own interest was in the citations of Greek writers which it contains, although it does not contain one of Zoroaster, as I had hoped.

PS: Nick Norelli has created a PDF with the two in parallel columns.  It’s here.

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