Phil Gons

Bible & Tech

Migne’s Patrologia Graeca in Logos

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Users have requested Migne’s 161-volume Patrologia Graeca many times. It seems that Logos is now giving some serious thought to pursuing it. Bob Pritchett, President and CEO of Logos, recently wrote this in the Logos Greek newsgroup:

We’ve recently been talking about Migne’s Patrologia Graeca and hearing from some users how it could be a great addition to Logos Bible Software.

. . .

While page images are available in our own SeminaryLibrary.com and some other sources, as far as we know there is no full-text electronic edition. And at 161 volumes of Greek text, much of it with parallel Latin, Patrologia Graeca would be our biggest pre-pub project ever. (We estimate that the keyboarding cost alone would be 5 times that of ICC.)

I am interested in your thoughts. Would you want PG in full text? What would it be worth? Is it only useful as the whole, or would you be interested in acquiring it in parts? (Century by century, starting with the earliest?)

Would your campus library be likely to purchase a more expensive online license to share across campus? (Migne’s Patrologia Latina is available this way, from a library database provider. I don’t know the cost, but have been told it’s tens of thousands of dollars.)

Does you library have Migne’s PG? If not, does it wish it did?

Thanks!

— Bob

Have any interest in it? Visit the Logos Greek newsgroup, and let Bob know.

Then perhaps we could go after Migne’s 217-volume Patrologia Latina, which will go nicely with the massive Oxford Latin Dictionary—and then eventually the (currently) 41-volume Patrologia Orientalis.

Update: This last statement expresses my own wishful thinking and in no way represents the intentions or desires of the company—just in case you were wondering.

Update 2: The first 18 volumes of Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Graeca, Part 1 are now available for pre-order and with enough interest will be produced.

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Comments

  1. Phil, I linked to you and to one of the Patristics blogs I’m familiar with to hopefully get the word out a little better.

    Now we just need Loeb Classical Library – at least in the 200 BC – 200 AD range…

    Mike

  3. Phil,

    I might well buy this, but it would obviously depend on costs. I seem to remember ICC debuted at $1,000 on pre-pub, so if this was $5,000, that would not be an option.

    But can I also add another plea. I consider myself a pretty advanced computer user, but I just never read the Logos Newsgroups. Newsgroups were great when I was starting out online in the early nineties. But now?

    To fire up a Usenet reader just to read the Logos newsgroup, and have to download every message before I can search, and not have proper access to an archive unless I spend hours downloading is just a real pain. Moreover, I can’t access the groups from my pocket PC. Like most users, I want to be able to participate from my web-browser, or read through my RSS reader.

    Please, please, please, can we migrate the newsgroups to online forums, or at least mirror them online. I suspect the vast majority of Logos users don’t participate in these groups because it’s simply too much trouble.

  4. Thanks, Mark.

    As to the newsgroup vs. forum issue, there seems to be two very diverse opinions. Unfortunately for the forum lovers, Bob is currently on the other side. This came out in a recent post in the newsgroups. Feel free to email [email protected] and voice your opinion. If you know of an easy way to go the both–and route, please let us know.