Monday, July 29, 2013

Andre Lemaire's Schweich Lectures on Levantine Epigraphy and History in the Achaemenid Period

http://www.britac.ac.uk/events/2013/levantine_epigraphy_and_history.cfm

This year's annual Schweich Lectures on Biblical Archaeology are available as audio files. The lecturer is Andre Lemaire, a well known scholar in Semitic epigraphy.

Friday, July 26, 2013

Women in Judaism

http://wjudaism.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/wjudaism/index

From the home page:

WOMEN IN JUDAISM: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL is an academic, refereed journal published exclusively on the Internet, and devoted to scholarly debate on gender-related issues in Judaism. The ultimate aim of the journal is to promote the reconceptualization of the study of Judaism, by acknowledging and incorporating the roles played by women, and by encouraging the development of alternative research paradigms. Cross-methodological and interdisciplinary, the journal does not promote a fixed ideology, and welcomes a variety of approaches.

Annual Report of the Department of Antiquities

http://www.mcw.gov.cy/mcw/DA/DA.nsf/DMLanreport_en/DMLanreport_en?OpenDocument

As the title suggests the annual report may be downloaded as a PDF document. The report is available from  2006-2008.

DOAB: Dictionary of Open Access Books

http://www.doabooks.org/

About DOAB

Purpose of DOAB The primary aim of DOAB is to increase discoverability of Open Access books. Academic publishers are invited to provide metadata of their Open Access books to DOAB. Metadata will be harvestable in order to maximize dissemination, visibility and impact. Aggregators can integrate the records in their commercial services and libraries can integrate the directory into their online catalogues, helping scholars and students to discover the books. The directory will be open to all publishers who publish academic, peer reviewed books in Open Access and should contain as many books as possible, provided that these publications are in Open Access and meet academic standards.

Metadata harvesting and content dissemination

OAI harvesting
DOAB supports the OAI protocol for metadata harvesting (OAI-PMH). Service providers and libraries can use the protocol to harvest the metadata of the records from DOAB for inclusion in their collections and catalogues.

Technical information
Base URL: http://www.doabooks.org/oai
Metadata format: All books in DOAB are available in Dublin Core oai_dc and MARCXML formats.
http://www.doabooks.org/oai?verb=ListMetadataFormats
Sets: All subjects areas in DOAB are defined as a set.
http://www.doabooks.org/oai?verb=ListSets
Few examples using OAI verbs and parameters
ListIdentifiers verb:
http://www.doabooks.org/oai?verb=ListIdentifiers&from=2012-01-01&metadataPrefix=oai_dc
ListRecords verb
http://www.doabooks.org/oai?verb=ListRecords&from=2012-01-01&metadataPrefix=oai_dc
GetRecord verb:
http://www.doabooks.org/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&identifier=oai:doab-books:14353
Harvesting records in MARCXML format:
http://www.doabooks.org/oai?verb=ListRecords&set=Mathematics_and_Statistics&metadataPrefix=marcxml
CSV
Libraries and aggregators can also download the list of records in DOAB in a comma separated format. Then they can import the file to Excel or some other software programme for further use.
http://www.doabooks.org/doab?func=csv
Metadata license
All metadata feeds are available under a CC0 1.0 license.

DOAB search box on your website

Click here to create a DOAB search box on your own website, such as this one:

Search

Information for Publishers

DOAB determines requirements for participation by publishers, in consultation with the participating publishers and DOAB Advisory Board.
Requirements
The current requirements have been specified by the OAPEN Foundation in consultation with OASPA. The current requirements to take part in DOAB are twofold:

  • Academic books in DOAB shall be available under an Open Access license (such as a Creative Commons license)
  • Academic books in DOAB shall be subjected to independent and external peer review prior to publication
The policies and procedures regarding peer review and licensing should be clearly outlined on the publisher web site. More information about these requirements can be found in the Statement on Open Access (Appendix II of the OASPA bylaws). Application
Publishers who wish to take part in DOAB must fill in the application form. In this form they describe their license policy (or policies) and their peer review procedures. This information is reviewed by DOAB. After approval publishers get access to DOAB admin tool where they can upload their books.
Upload procedures
Publishers are responsible for their own information about their company and their publications. They are requested to upload the information about their books themselves. Publishers receive an account where they can upload and edit their information. There are two basic methods to upload the metadata of books:
  • book by book, through an online form.
  • in bulk, by creating a file with the information in a specified format.
    The specifications of the fields to use can be downloaded here. For more information, see: DOAB Metadata.

Who is responsible for DOAB

The Directory of Open Access Books is a service of OAPEN Foundation. The OAPEN Foundation is an international initiative dedicated to Open Access monograph publishing, based at the National Library in The Hague. DOAB is being developed in close cooperation with Lars Bjørnshauge and Salam Baker Shanawa (director of SemperTool), who were also responsible for the development of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). SemperTool develops and maintains DOAB system.

Awards

'Best Free Reference Web Site' DOAB was selected as one of the MARS Best Free Reference Web Sites for 2013, voted for by member librarians from around the United States. ‘MARS: Emerging Technologies in Reference’ is a section of the Reference and User Services Association of the American Library Association (ALA). 'Best New Product' DOAB received the Best New Product award in the 2012 series of awards for the best and worst electronic products of interest to libraries, sponsored by the Charleston Advisor. The Charleston Advisor publishes reviews of online resources for libraries. All reviews are peer-reviewed by librarians.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

StepBible: Beta launch

StepBible


Tyndale House Cambridge Launches Beta-version of Scripture Tools for Every Person (STEP), a new free Bible study resource.



24 July  2013, CAMBRIDGE, UK
Today the STEP development team of Tyndale House Cambridge launched the Beta-test version of a new free Bible study resource at www.StepBible.org.
STEP software is designed especially for teachers and preachers who don’t have access to resources such as Tyndale House Library, which specialises in the biblical text, interpretation, languages and biblical historical background and is a leading research institution for Biblical Studies.
The web-based program, which will soon also be downloadable for PCs and Macs, will aid users who lack resources, or who have to rely only on smartphones or outmoded computers.

About STEP



The project began when STEP director Dr David Instone-Brewer created the Tyndale Toolbar for his own use. It became popular among researchers at Tyndale House and is now used by thousands of people across the globe. The Beta launch of STEP invites users to try out the new tools and give suggestions for improvement.
"STEP represents the most comprehensive yet user friendly tool for Bible Study I have seen in over 35 years of research," said Dr Wesley B. Rose. Tim Bulkeley, a contributor to the project, said "I wish I was just starting to teach in Kinshasa now, with STEP and a smart phone. Students would find learning Hebrew and Greek, to read the Bible directly, so much easier."
Almost a hundred volunteers worldwide have contributed to this work, including 75 who helped to align the ESV, used with the kind permission of Crossway, with the underlying Greek and Hebrew. All their work will now be freely available for other software projects. There are many exciting features in the pipeline for others to get involved with.
Try it out at www.StepBible.org.

Further information



The special problems of the Majority World have inspired some unique technical solutions. The whole database-driven program is designed to be downloaded onto computers as diverse as decade-old desktops and Android phones. This download, which is still being tested, enables it to continue working when internet access goes down.
Ten language interfaces are available and another 83 are ready for volunteers to work on. Bibles in many languages are already present and agreements are in place with the United Bible Societies and other organisations to add hundreds more. Someone using a Swahili browser can see buttons, menus and Bibles in their own mother-tongue.
Some of the features are unavailable on any other software, and the ease of use belies its extraordinary complexity. Even in Basic View you can get answers to questions like: Which other verses use the same original word found here? This works for every Bible in all the available languages without requiring knowledge of any Hebrew or Greek. In Advanced View one can see multiple interlinear texts with word-by-word alignment in English, Chinese, Hebrew and other languages. Information about grammar and dictionaries is also given at three levels so that someone wanting quick information isn't overloaded with the complex details, which are also available.

Contact for more information
David Instone-Brewer
Tyndale House, 36 Selwyn Gardens
Cambridge, CB3 9BA, UK

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Cuneiform Digital Library Bulletin

http://cdli.ucla.edu/pubs/cdlb.html

A resource containing scholarly articles on cuneiform texts as well as texts themselves from libraries across the world.

Textus: an online publication from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/english/units.php?cat=5016&incat=4982

Textus is the annual of the Hebrew University Bible Project. All 26 volumes (vols. 1-26, 1962-2013) are open access. The site (http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/english/units.php?cat=5024&incat=4982) also has links to examples of the project's critical edition of the Hebrew Bible and the Syro-Palestinian version of the Hebrew Bible.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Biblindex

http://www.biblindex.mom.fr/

Want to know where a certain verse in the Bible is quoted in Jewish, Christian, and Medieval literature? This is your site. It includes:

- Data from the published volumes of Biblia Patristica, Index des citations et allusions bibliques dans la littérature patristique, Editions du CNRS (ca. 270,000 biblical references, with updates on 5,000 references), prepared by the Centre for Patristics Analysis and Documentation (CADP) : 1. Beginnings to Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, 1975 - 2. The third century (except Origen), 1977 - 3. Origen, 1980 - 4. Eusebius of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius of Salamis, 1987 - 5. Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, Amphiloque of Iconium, 1991 - 6. Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, Ambrosiaster, 1995 - 7. Didymus of Alexandria, 2000 - Supplement, Philo of Alexandria, 1982. [They all are all out of print.]
- Unpublished data from the archives of Biblia Patristica (ca. 100,000 references) on Athanasius of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Theodoret of Cyrus, Procopius of Gaza, Jerome: these data are unverified (they appear in red).

Monday, July 1, 2013

Hittite Monuments

http://www.hittitemonuments.com/

From the home page:
Monuments of the Hittites is an experimental site prepared totally as a hobby. My aim is to build a page with references to all major Hittite monuments. The locations listed below are the sites that has one or more monument belonging to the times of Hittite civilization. The text list below divides the sites in to two groups by date. This is definetely not a complete list, nor the listed sites may have complete information. Some pages are still missing information or images. I will continue to update the pages with more information.

OI -- Late Old Babylonian Personal Names

http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/lobpni/

From the home page:
This searchable file of personal names derives from cuneiform texts chiefly dating to the reigns of the last three kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon, 1683-1595 B.C. Version 3 indexes 14,315 unique attestations of personal names from almost 3,000 texts, including 4,678 entries from around 700 unpublished texts.