The Library of Antiquity Tips and Tricks for the Study of th

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cwconrad
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The Library of Antiquity Tips and Tricks for the Study of th

Post by cwconrad »

Much of this is not really new, but B-Greekers really ought to be aware of the new introductory materials at TLG that assist users at all levels of Greek in getting the most of what is accessible there:
https://libraryofantiquity.wordpress.co ... -browsing/
From the first section of this introduction, a few paragraphs:
As February winds to a close, it seemed like a good time to get started on the TLG guide we promised you. But here’s the thing: the TLG is a big project. It’s scary. And so we procrastinated for a really long time before finally deciding that partial was better than never.

In some ways, this story is similar to the (apocryphal?) story of the TLG itself. Way back when, in the pre-digital era, the TLG was behind its Latin counterpart, the TLL. (There is a lot more surviving Greek literature; before Intel, filing was done with index cards.) When computers came along, making a database of surviving Greek texts seemed like a possibility, and after several iterations on CD-ROM, the online TLG was born. The website now includes both texts and an online, searchable Big Liddell (with some other lexical tools).

Why would you use the TLG? It is the largest compendium of Greek texts (in Greek) that exists. It is a million times better than having to retype any given bit of Greek that you want into a word processor. And it lets you compare word usage (or search for a given concept) across over 2000 years of Greek literature — the TLG includes everything from Homer to Byzantium.

In other words, why wouldn’t you use the TLG?

This is a subscription-only service; you either need to pay for access or belong to an academic library (there is an abridged version that is free, but if you’re using the TLG, you probably want to use it all the way). I’m going to assume that everyone can get through their own single sign-on system to access digital resources at home and start from the welcome page.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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