Roger55 Posted February 17, 2012 Report Share Posted February 17, 2012 I just received an email from the administrator. It contains links to the Gutenberg Project and Quitus Libri. Well, my old outlook express will no longer let me follow email links. But I can search google. The Gutenberg Project is OK, I suppose, if you want a copy of Gibbon to read off the screen. But Quitus Libri seems to have no content? Was that thread just started? I would think www.tertullian.org would be more useful for chuch fathers or the MGH site on the web. Though you can find some Ante and Post Nicean Fathers' translations used. The fact is however that most source materials needs to be purchased through Amazon or Alibris. Stuff like the old Loeb Classical Library or the more modern Translated Texts for Historians are what pony riders have to use with occasional finds, like Zosimus and a piece of Zonarius. The problem is that most academic edited texts come from the continent and are from other the eary 20th and later 19th Century. These are either unavailable or brutally expensive. There is no real substitute for a University Library at a major University. The web as a source of sharing information is more a bust than a boon. Without a university comnnection a search engine like Jastor is just a blank wall. Information costs money. And the Web is more of a giant place for selling information than a place for sharing it. Academia will never give up it's monopoly and are determined to protect it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melvadius Posted February 17, 2012 Report Share Posted February 17, 2012 I am not certain without seeing the email but is it possible that the link was actually intended to be http://www.unrv.com/forum/forum/57-quintus-libri/ which is one of the fora on this site? The idea behind this fora as Primus Pilus expressed it is: This forum is for members to express their top 5 book choices on any given Roman topic. Feel free to start your own list, add to others, or discuss the lists. New Topics must be approved before they are visible. Topic rating is turned on in this forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sonic Posted February 17, 2012 Report Share Posted February 17, 2012 The problem is that most academic edited texts come from the continent and are from either the early 20th or later 19th Century. These are either unavailable or brutally expensive. The web as a source of sharing information is more a bust than a boon. This depends on how well you can search the net. I have slowly (over several years) found links to books etc. that are out of copyright but which are available on the web, although many of these are either difficult to use or are based on the 19th-century axiom that anybody interested in Ancient Greece or Rome could read Latin. As you say, where these aren't available on the net they are ridiculously expensive, but that is why publishers such as LUP or Boydell are now beginning to make them more widely available or commissioning new books/translations. Unfortunately due to the small number of people willing to pay money for these books some - but not all - are still pretty expensive. Without a university connection a search engine like Jstor is just a blank wall. Information costs money. And the Web is more of a giant place for selling information than a place for sharing it. I agree that Jstor and the like do price their services so high and/ or limit information to institutions rather than individuals to the point where it is still a minority who have access to them - unless you are linked to a University. However, if books are still in copyright why should the publisher make them available on the internet for free? Publishers are there to make money: to see them in any other way is - sadly - simply wishful thinking. Having said that, I agree that some of these publishers appear to be milking those interested for every penny that they can, and that feels unfair - especially when the information is still in copyright but the books are simply not available either new or secondhand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger55 Posted February 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) The source I was thinking of was the critical edition (A Dutch publisher if I remember correctly) of Zosimus. Then I bought Jordanes's with Mommsen providing the textual apparatus in a reprint of the MGH for $19 and shipping. That isn't bad , but _Fifth-Century Gaul: A Crisis of Identity?_ (paper) was $59 which seems out of line to me. And I've paid $100 plus for other books in paper. What really chaps my lips is what a state U, with only a poor research library, wants $100 a year to use their research facillities on site, no ILL included. Moreover, what they have in their circulating collection, which is dated because they done away history, philosophy, sociology, and political science and stuck the few surviving faculty into "Liberal Studies," has a checkout period of two weeks! Scholars are people who pay overpriced instate tutition (up thousands of percent) or are faculty, you understand. Of course they are turning the place into a trade school, what it was in territorial days. Edited February 17, 2012 by Roger55 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viggen Posted April 5, 2012 Report Share Posted April 5, 2012 I just received an email from the administrator. It contains links to the Gutenberg Project and Quitus Libri. Hi Roger55, you receive this when you sign up to our newsletter, Gutenberg http://www.unrv.com/forum/topic/11162-gutenberg-books-in-pdf/ The Gutenberg Project doesn`t offer their works in pdf, so thats why we converted them the other is as has been said , simply a recommendation to any given topic the posters favourite 5 books http://www.unrv.com/forum/forum/57-quintus-libri/ cheers viggen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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