Category: Information access

Why there are no useful German internet sites and no German gallica or google books.

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

I heard an incredible story from a German scholar while I was at the patristics conference, which may explain why so little German material appears online, compared with the vast collections of English and French scholarship at Gallica.fr or Google books. 

Apparently German publishers have taken on teams of lawyers to scan the internet.  Any time that someone posts something on the internet, these send them a threatening letter, a demand to take it down and a bill for use of the material thus far (no doubt a massive and unreasonable one, of course).  Naturally whoever gets hit this way loses interest in putting stuff online fast.  And with German copyright law giving a dog-in-the-manger term of life-plus-70 years, one can easily see that most things will be caught.

Have I misunderstood?  Or do the Germans really not get the point of the internet this badly?

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Problems with the Mingana manuscripts at Birmingham

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

While at the garden party at the Patristics conference in Oxford, I got talking with someone and the subject of the Mingana manuscripts at Birmingham came up.  This collection of Syriac, Arabic and other oriental manuscripts was the property of Alphone Mingana, who left it to the university.

My friend was complaining about difficulty getting a reproduction of one manuscript.  I myself have had the same experience.  It is nearly impossible to get a copy of any manuscript in that collection; and for a daft reason.  The university authorities have signed an exclusive deal with a continental firm to produce micro-fiche of them all.  This has been done — but now you can only obtain copies of the fiches from this company. 

And they price very, very high.  A complete set goes for tens of thousands of pounds.  There is no easy way to order individual manuscripts.  My own enquiry was ignored.  And… what on earth are most of us going to do with fiche anyway?  I don’t have a microfiche reader; does anyone?  In the age of PDF’s, why are we messing around with microfiche?

Some time back I made a vain attempt to obtain a copy of Thomas of Edessa On the epiphany from their collection.  I communicated with the library, who made sorrowful noises and expressed their inability to help me.  In the end I went without.  My friend at the conference likewise was trying to do without, since he could not afford the extraordinary fees for these low-quality inconvenient reproductions.

Birmingham university needs to get its act together.  I suspect that if I looked at the terms of the Mingana bequest, I would find that they are in breach of it.  I can’t believe for a moment that Mingana left his manuscipts so that copies could NOT be obtained.  After all, there is little practical difference between the current situation and an outright ban.  The catalogue of these manuscripts, needless to say, is out of print and impossible to find anyway.

Has anyone ever managed to get a copy of a manuscript in the Mingana collection?

Update: I’m now trying again for Ms. 142.  I’ve emailed IDC, who own the microfiche and want 19,000 euros for a complete set (!).  Let’s see if I get any reply.

Update 27th August: No reply from IDC.  Hmm.

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Quasten’s “Patrology” — new volume available!

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

Everyone knows that Quasten’s 4 volume handbook of the fathers of the church ends ca. 451.  Few know that the Italian edition has two further volumes.  I discovered on Monday that the first of these has been translated into English; I bought one on Tuesday while at the Oxford Patristics Conference, on seeing the publisher in a corner of a tent!  Get it from Amazon.com NOW!

The format is exactly as before; writers are introduced in chronological order, their life and works are summarised (with bibliography), their works are then discussed individually (editions and translations listed); finally for major writers their theology is discussed.

This volume covers Greek and oriental church fathers from 451 AD (Council of Chalcedon) to John Damascene in the 8th century, the last of the patristic writers.  It includes separate sections on Syriac and Coptic writers.

Frankly this is invaluable.  Prior to this one had to rely on scanty mentions in short works like Altaner’s “Patrology”, itself elderly.

It’s not as good as Quasten vol. 4, which was prepared by the same team.  The bibliographies are shallower.  Annoyingly instead of listing the edition, entries sometimes just refer to the entry no in the “Clavis Patrum Graecorum”.  No-one has that to hand, since none of us can afford it.  Likewise the translations are scanty.  It’s a bit odd that it is published separately, rather than as Quasten vol. 5 (which is what it is), but possibly commercial tussles are responsible.

But it’s still essential.  I’ve finally worked out who the Julianists were that Severus of Antioch denounces, for instance.  But then, I’ve only read around 60 pages so far.  It can be taken to bed and read sequentially, as an excellent way to access the story of those centuries.  And I will!  (Mind you, whatever will I do now with my copy of the Italian version?)

Sadly the translator, Adrian Walford, has died.  He did start on translating the other volume, on later Latin writers, but died of cancer before getting very far.  Let us hope that the Institutum Augustinianum find another English translator.

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Harvard Houghton Library Syriac manuscripts

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

The excellent Syriacologist Steven Ring has discovered that a good catalogue of all the Syriac manuscripts at Harvard is online here.  Better yet, he’s going out there to take a look at them.

Among them I notice as Ms. 95 a copy of Nestorius, The Bazaar of Heracleides, on which I have written before.  Colophons in this suggest that it is not a direct copy of the only manuscript, the now lost Kotchanes manuscript, but via an intermediary. 

In Ms. 106 are extracts from the letters of Ignatius of Antioch.  Perhaps some might be from other letters than the 3 known to and published by Wm. Cureton?

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UK National Archives – how to harness people power

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

I am deeply impressed with the National Archives.  I first came to hear of them when I learned that they allow their readers to bring in digital cameras, under reasonable conditions, and I was impressed.  After all, the only certain way to ensure the destruction of a document is to ensure no copies are made.

I did write to them and suggest that they keep copies of all these photographs — instant digital library! — but they couldn’t see how they could manage this administratively.  Still, they replied.

Today I learned by accident that they have decided to harness their readers’ interest and create a Wiki, Your Archives.  The idea is that their readers can supplement the archival listings which are professionally produced.  In this way, for free, readers will be able to contribute and improve the catalogues.

This is very intelligent thinking.  The internet wasn’t built by a central initiative, but by a million tiny hands.  Every sentence added to such a wiki is a gain.  And it really costs them nothing!  I see no downside.

If you use the National Archives, please contribute to this Wiki.  I have often criticised the British Library for ‘not getting it’.   Here is an example of a bunch who really have got the point of the internet, and can see what it can do for them, and for the world.

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Journal Asiatique now online

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

It seems that all the volumes of the Journal Asiatique are now online at the Bibliotheque Nationale Gallica site, at this link here.  The journal contains many publications of interest to Syriac people, both text and translations.

I also have found a list of all the volumes of the Patrologia Orientalis available for download at the same site here.

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CSCO and Peeters of Leuven

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

The massive series of Oriental authors, the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium is kept in print by the publishers, Peeters of Leuven.  This is a great blessing, and reflects great credit on them. 

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I really did need a copy of Jacob of Edessa’s continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius.  The work was used by Michael the Syrian, and portions have survived in one of the manuscripts from the Nitrian desert now held in the British Library.  The text was published by E.W.Brooks in CSCO 5, Chronica Minora, and a Latin translation in CSCO 6, each for around 20 euros.  The volumes can be ordered online, and I did just that, via the link above.  Credit card details can be entered online, although unfortunately the site does not seem to be secure as the little key-lock does not appear.  However I took a (rare) chance and went ahead. The web site was painless enough otherwise.

The volumes arrived today.  Each is quite slim.  CSCO5 indeed seems to be the original 1905 imprint; CSCO6 a 1960 anastatic reprint.  No doubt more people are familiar with Latin than Syriac, and sales of each half must have reflected this.  The Syriac is printed in Estrangelo very clearly indeed.  The booklets are clearly intended to be handed to a binder for professional binding, as was the custom in the days when the series began.  Another custom of that time: the pages are uncut!  So each page has to be detached from that following.  Fortunately these are perforated, so it is easy enough.  But I think I may go in search of a guillotine pretty soon!

The continuation takes up most of this volume, and is a continuation to book 2 only.  There seems to be a preface by Jacob, discussing an error of 3 years in the calculation of years by Eusebius.  Then the tabular format of book 2 continues, starting at the vicennalia of Constantine and finishing with two columns of Byzantine and Arab rulers.   But a number of short pieces are also included, including a De familiis linguarum – a fragment of an epitome of some work of Eusebius.  When I can get the pages open, I will report further.

PS: I have just discovered from the prefaces in these books that Brooks, bless him, first published English translations of much of this material, in obscure German periodicals.  These I will attempt to obtain and put online.

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Microsoft books.live.com – how to access

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

Stephen C. Carlson kindly drew my attention to this blog post  at the Amsterdam NT Blog which explains why none of us can see anything on the much vaunted Microsoft rival to Google books.  Apparently only people whose browser language is set to ‘eng-us’ can see anything.   I customised my copy of Firefox to do this, and searched for ‘tertullian’ and, after a bit of a lag, voila!  Suddenly material appears.  The first item is the Dalrymple 1790 version of Tertullian Ad Scapulam.  There is a link to download the whole volume as a PDF (thankfully).

I’ve not explored this much but I would like to signal the availability of this material to non-Americans, not least since material gathered and paid for by the British taxpayer is being used to populate it courtesy of the British Library.

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Oriental Institute publications free online

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

While reading awilum.com, I discovered that the Oriental Institute in Chicago has decided that it “is committed to digitizing all of its publications and making them available online, without charge.”  This electronic publication programme makes material available in PDF.  A full list is available at the above link.  This is marvellous news — well done the OI! 

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Forthcoming English translation of Poggio Bracciolini’s letters

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

We all owe a great debt to Poggio Bracciolini, who in the early 15th century hunted down and recovered so many classical texts. His letters have never been published in English, aside from an unsatisfactory collection to his friend Niccolo Niccoli, whose massive collection of Greek and Latin manuscripts forms the kernel of the Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana in Florence.

Harvard University Press have launched a series modelled on the Loeb Classical Library for renaissance writers. Details about it are here.

UPDATE (2012): Updated link for the I Tatti library here.

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