Additions to CDLI pagesThe Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative is pleased to announce the insertion of new pages at its web site http://cdli.ucla.edu/ (now running on Apple OS X server). We note first the addition to our list of participants (http://cdli.ucla.edu/staff.html) the contributing partners Giorgio Buccellati, emeritus Professor of Assyriology, UCLA, and Yushu Gong, Professor of Assyriology, Department of Oriental Languages and Culture, Beijing University. Second, we have added several items to our pages "Work in Progress" (http://cdli.ucla.edu/progress.html [dead link]). A new catalogue of the full data set of the project, running on Filemaker web-server software, now consists of nearly 54,000 entries representing as many tablets from the early phases of cuneiform, ca. 3300-2000 B.C. An infopage at http://cdli.ucla.edu/using_database.html explains the general structure of the data presentation, and how the user can find more details of its contents. As an aid in working with the catalog, each section of the form will have an info ("?") button that will link the user to additional information about the data in that section. For example, the link from the section on chronology will offer an explanation for each field in that section and will describe how dates are formatted in the CDLI catalog. The on-line CDLI catalog may be searched and sorted by any field, but records may not be added, altered, or deleted. We apologize in advance for bugs that remain in this preliminary, dynamic data base; we are currently working with the development office of Filemaker to eliminate incompatibilities created above all by queries sent to the data set from such dated browser programs as Netscape 4.x. The user is welcome to download the full file at the respective link under http://cdli.ucla.edu/using_database.html, but he/she will require Filemaker version 5+ to work with the data in its present form. For those using other data base programs, we include for download at the same location an ASCII export from the Filemaker file, together with an export/import list of field identifiers. All such files are in the compressed format ".sit". Several new tools for navigating and searching specific data sets have been developed by our Berlin office (MPIWG) under Peter Damerow, working with Jena Professor Manfred Krebernik and UCLA staff member Jacob Dahl on the 3rd millennium Hilprecht collection on the one hand, and with the computer center of the University of Bern on the other. A preliminary presentation of the Hilprecht collection may now be found at http://128.97.154.151:591/cdli_templates/search.htm [dead link], including catalog, transliteration, and our current proposal for the image documentation of tablets in our data set. The thumbnails of these pages link directly to a dedicated image server (currently Bern) for user-scalable downloads of full or partial images. This process, if it proves feasible, would allow us to archive and serve full-image files (current CDLI standards 600ppi) without overburdening the transmission lines of online users of our data. Further, our standards of tablet documentation are evident here in the "fat cross" display of obverse, reverse and four edges in one image (insofar as we have all six images). We will reserve for separate images the documentation of eventual detail material, seal impressions, and, in GIF compression, published copies of tablets. Further, we have put online at http://141.14.237.5:8090/templates/search.htm [dead link] our documentation of the proto-cuneiform tablets with search capability of both catalog and sign glossary, and at http://archimedes.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de:86/cgi-bin/vor?lang=sux&template=cdli.tmpl.html [dead link] a search engine written by David Smith of the Perseus project (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/) using tools developed for the Archimedes project (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/PR/1.2/archimedes.html) of the MPIWG. It allows the user to query our full data for sign clusters. This promises to be an important tool in performing statistical searches for sign combinations of possible semantic or linguistic significance. Note that the searchable data includes the now complete electronic transliterations of the proto-Elamite corpus entered by Jacob Dahl using the Meriggi sign list La scrittura proto-elamica. A search for archaic "EN-A" or proto-Elamite "M[eriggi]009" (or any combination such as "EN-A SAL" or "M009 M371") with, for instance, the settings "Sumerian" (="Archaic") and "dynamic clustering", will result in a list of individual text cases that include the specific, but also possibly related sign combinations. Note as a complement to the Sigrist/Damerow files of Ur III and Old Babylonian year names the insertion in the "Work in Progress" page under "Ur III" a link to a small file, based on the current proposals of various scholars, with sortable entries for the sequences of month names in the major provinces of the Ur III period. Third, the CDLI publications pages (http://cdli.ucla.edu/pub.html) now contain proposed guidelines for authors and referees of submissions to both online journals Cuneiform Digital Library Bulletin (CDLB) and Cuneiform Digital Library Journal (CDLJ). Sample contributions are listed at http://cdli.ucla.edu/Pubs/CDLJlist.html [dead link] and at http://cdli.ucla.edu/Pubs/CDLBlist.html [dead link]. Fourth, we have revised the entry page of the CDLI to include under a general heading "Communications" both an archive for announcements of staff, but also communications to the project from associates and other interested participants. The first such communications entered now include reports to a recent associates conference, held in October 2001 on Catalina Island, by participants describing the nature of specific text corpora that are a part of our full data set (http://cdli.ucla.edu/communications.html). These reports will be archived in the entries of the CDLB. Under "Tools & Sundries" of the CDLI home page, the user will find, together with a catalog of the Gelb Memorial Library at UCLA and a list of proto-cuneiform publications, a preliminary list of abbreviations used in Assyriological literature (derived above all from the Reallexikon der Assyriologie and the Sumerian Dictionary of the University of Pennsylvania). We will in the next weeks be correcting and adding to this list with the goal of making of it a formal proposal for abbreviations to be used in publications and data pages of the CDLI. Suggestions and/or additions to this list are sought from the mail list members. We welcome comments / corrections to the new and old pages of the project, and encourage the submission of contributions to the journals.
Bob Englund (englund@ucla.edu) February 5, 2002 |