Logos is asking for comments. OK. First, I love Logos and see no real competition for this tool. I started with version one or two. I now have almost seven thousand books in by library. I am not formally trained in religion nor do I have any foreign language skills. Here are some things I love:
1. The large selection of books available.
2. The reverse interlinear pannel at the bottom of Bible pages.
3. The tools that let me find and research the original language and those word meanings.
4. Highlighting in general.
5. Layouts, collections, automatic footnoting of copied passages, Passage Guides Bible Word Study rings.
6. More than anything I like having access to all these tools without an Internet connection. It is not everywhere yet and may never be EVERYWHERE.
Are there things that can be improved ? YES
1. I am not a customer, I am a client. I have invested thousands of hours and thousands of dollars in my library and the tools to use it. The book sales process resembles too closely the operation of a book store that wants to sell me any book in which I show interest. I want help building a collection. That means that I need information about the point of view of the author and the reason a book or collection fits for me. Every book seems to be a must have purchase with useful information that everyone should want. That is not always true.
2. In an early version of Logos they added searching by topic and announced that resources down to the paragraph level (at times) would be tagged with their appropriate topic to aid searching. I have felt this slipping away toward the current dependence on searching for specific words with Boolean operators to help. We badly need a return to help with topic tagging of resources that help when searching the library for a resource or when searching the content of the library. Topic searching needs to much more robust than it is now. I find it almost useless.
3. Notes is another feature that has never matured. It is not flexible enough in its current form. I would like to be able to develop either a readable speech or the speaking outline used to teach a class. I would like to be able to move items or groups of items around. I would like a tag/link popup to the source, another related presentation, or to a pop up window to be used if the source is not in the library or if I want to make extra notes that would be useful if students question a point. Moving information to MS Word is the best plan that I have found now.
4. I clearly sense a drift to the cloud and toward Internet linked operation. I am teaching in a number of churches. 15% offer me WiFi access and in 30% of them cell phone linking to the internet is not possible so there is no way to connect unless I carry my own satellite system. Some of these are small remote country churches. Some are big brick buildings that block the signals in parts of the building like a basement classroom. Some have WiFi in the office of Sanctuary but not in the entire church. I don't see this changing for years. I am dependent on Logos to support my study and teaching, often in places that do not offer services to connect to the internet. My home has WyFi in half of the space and spotty sell service. Verizon says that having to make a call from the front yard is acceptable service in a big city. FaithLife is an example of this Internet based service that does not click for me. First I cannot reach the Internet in my Sunday School class so it is not useful a a focal point in our class. That does not matter to me, however, because I don't see a productive way to use Faithlife as the focal point of a group discussion. It seems is more like social media than Bible study to me. I am in several groups and none have adopted FaithLife as a useful tool for their group..
Overall Logos is the main ingredient in my preparation for classes, my participation in classes, my personal study, and my shareing information with others. My pastor and other teachers in several churches around the state email me for information and are amaized at the response I can provide quickly with supporting documentation with footnoted sources from trustworthy authors.
Thanks Logos. Great Job. Please keep it up.
