Perseus Project
Encyclopedia
The Perseus Project is a digital library
project of Tufts University
that assembles digital collections of humanities
resources. It is hosted by the Department of Classics
. It has suffered at times from computer hardware
problems, and its resources are occasionally unavailable. The project is mirrored
by the Max Planck Society
in Berlin
and the University of Chicago
.
The project was founded in 1987 to collect and present materials for study of ancient Greece
. It has published two CD-ROM
s and established the Perseus Digital Library on the World Wide Web
in 1995. The project has expanded its original scope; current collections cover Greco-Roman classics, the English Renaissance
. Other materials, such as the papers of Edwin Bolles and the history of Tufts University, have moved into the Tufts Digital Library.
The editor-in-chief of the project is Gregory Crane, the Tufts Winnick Family Chair in Technology and Entrepreneurship. He has been editor-in-chief since the founding of the Perseus Project.
Ancient Greek works in Perseus are stored as beta code
, though they can be reformatted for display into a variety of transcription systems.
. Perseus is a contributor to the Open Content Alliance
and supports the Internet Archive
.
All texts and materials believed to be in the public domain are available for free download in XML
format from Perseus 4.0. Some content is restricted by intellectual property
license agreements with the rights holders.
Digital library
A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats and accessible by computers. The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks...
project of Tufts University
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France...
that assembles digital collections of humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
resources. It is hosted by the Department of Classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
. It has suffered at times from computer hardware
Computer hardware
Personal computer hardware are component devices which are typically installed into or peripheral to a computer case to create a personal computer upon which system software is installed including a firmware interface such as a BIOS and an operating system which supports application software that...
problems, and its resources are occasionally unavailable. The project is mirrored
Mirror (computing)
In computing, a mirror is an exact copy of a data set. On the Internet, a mirror site is an exact copy of another Internet site.Mirror sites are most commonly used to provide multiple sources of the same information, and are of particular value as a way of providing reliable access to large downloads...
by the Max Planck Society
Max Planck Society
The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes publicly funded by the federal and the 16 state governments of Germany....
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
.
The project was founded in 1987 to collect and present materials for study of ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
. It has published two CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
s and established the Perseus Digital Library on the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
in 1995. The project has expanded its original scope; current collections cover Greco-Roman classics, the English Renaissance
English Renaissance
The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 15th and early 16th centuries to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century; like most of northern...
. Other materials, such as the papers of Edwin Bolles and the history of Tufts University, have moved into the Tufts Digital Library.
The editor-in-chief of the project is Gregory Crane, the Tufts Winnick Family Chair in Technology and Entrepreneurship. He has been editor-in-chief since the founding of the Perseus Project.
Ancient Greek works in Perseus are stored as beta code
Beta code
Beta Code is a method of representing, using only ASCII characters, characters and formatting found in ancient Greek texts . Its aim is to be not merely a romanization of the Greek alphabet, but to represent faithfully a wide variety of source texts – including formatting as well as rare or...
, though they can be reformatted for display into a variety of transcription systems.
Copyright status
The Perseus Project supports open-source content and has published code on SourceForgeSourceForge
SourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...
. Perseus is a contributor to the Open Content Alliance
Open Content Alliance
The Open Content Alliance is a consortium of organizations contributing to a permanent, publicly accessible archive of digitized texts. Its creation was announced in October 2005 by Yahoo!, the Internet Archive, the University of California, the University of Toronto and others...
and supports the Internet Archive
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
.
All texts and materials believed to be in the public domain are available for free download in XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
format from Perseus 4.0. Some content is restricted by intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
license agreements with the rights holders.
See also
- List of digital library projects
- Stoa Consortium
- Digital ClassicistDigital ClassicistThe Digital Classicist is a project and community for those interested in the application of Humanities Computing to the field of Classics and to ancient world studies more generally. The project claims the twin aims of bringing together scholars and students with an interest in computing and the...
- Thesaurus Linguae GraecaeThesaurus Linguae GraecaeThe Thesaurus Linguae Graecae is a research center at the University of California, Irvine. The TLG was founded in 1972 by Marianne McDonald with the goal to create a comprehensive digital collection of all surviving texts written in Greek from antiquity to...
- Herculaneum papyriHerculaneum papyriThe Herculaneum papyri are more than 1,800 papyri found in Herculaneum in the 18th century, carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. After various methods of manipulation, a method was found to unroll and to read them....
Literature
- Ancient Greece from Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times by Thomas R. Martin, Yale University PressYale University PressYale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....
, 1996. ISBN 0-300-06956-1. A text written by Prof Martin to accompany the Perseus Project online resources.