Why Logos/Verbum is so frustrating and why its not all its fault

MJ. Smith

Today, I was exploring an issue in systematic theology that made me compare the results of the Theological Guide to the Factbook record for the same theological topic.

1. I was startled that the Systematic Theology results were display in such different manner - one provided essential one return by book, the other reported that section many times as different levels. There was no indication of denomination or date and no means to sort them. Most of this are "new" features that we are waiting to see spread across all applicable sections.
2. Although I was running Verbum, the from the store section was evangelical/reformed in nature. As I own most Catholic systematic theologies, I would have expected an Orthodox/Lutheran/Anglican/Patristic bent.

So, I decide that since I only have 250 systematic theology books, I will manually tag them with denomination but:

1. It turns out that Factbook does not even have records for some of the authors. Even where there are Factbook records, they are inconsistent with regards to including denominations. So, I end up with a bizarre workflow where I first check Factbook, if not found I check the storefront, if not found or denomination not given I check Wikipedia, if not there I run a Google search. The utter inconsistency of Logos drives me nuts.
2. So, Wikipedia gives me "associate congregation of seceders", "ministry of the Secession church", "newly built United Secession Church", "formed a new body 'The Original Associate Synod" ...all of which mean nothing to me. However, Scotland makes me think these probably represent some division with the Presbyterian church.
3. So, I return to Logos to run an "all" smart search on "united secession church' (no quotes) which the Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith informs me was formed by 280 Presbyterian congregations with roots in the Associate Presbytery/Associate Synod which divided into "Old Light Burghers," "New Light Burghers," "Old Light Anti-burghers," and "New Light Anti-burghers". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church informs me that the New Lichts groups united to form the United Secession Church which united with the Relief synod to form the United Presbyterian Church. 

So, what does all that tell me ... next to nothing because I have no idea of the distinctives between all these groups I've never heard of before. There is at least a Factbook entry for United Secession Church - which provides little additional information. So, for my manual tagging I add a tag that is basically meaningless to me - I know it is Scottish, Presbyterian, and related to some unknown 18th/19th century controversies.

When Factbook was first delivered in its new form, I had hopes that it would provide the details for snippets of church history as reflected in the splitting and uniting of theological threads perhaps even providing detailed family trees for snippets. But for now, I am still forced to external tools to see if I can put actually meaning to this slough of denominational terms.

Rosie Perera

MJ. Smith said:

So, I decide that since I only have 250 systematic theology books, I will manually tag them with denomination but:

1. It turns out that Factbook does not even have records for some of the authors. Even where there are Factbook records, they are inconsistent with regards to including denominations. So, I end up with a bizarre workflow where I first check Factbook, if not found I check the storefront, if not found or denomination not given I check Wikipedia, if not there I run a Google search. The utter inconsistency of Logos drives me nuts.

Have you checked Andrew Baguley's spreadsheet? He has done most of this work already. Here's his latest update of it.

Bill

MJ. Smith said:

So, I decide that since I only have 250 systematic theology books, I will manually tag them with denomination but:

1. It turns out that Factbook does not even have records for some of the authors. Even where there are Factbook records, they are inconsistent with regards to including denominations. So, I end up with a bizarre workflow where I first check Factbook, if not found I check the storefront, if not found or denomination not given I check Wikipedia, if not there I run a Google search. The utter inconsistency of Logos drives me nuts.

I share your frustration regarding author information and denominational info in Factbook.

I try to tag every author of commentaries and theology books with their denomination, and as you have noticed some, I would say many, authors have no record of any kind in Factbook. I use Factbook most everyday for author information, not only for denomination, but background articles, their list of works in Logos and those not in Logos, other authors they had co-authored with.

I will say, I asked about why there were no denominations for many other types of books and was told only bible commentaries were being tagged with author denominations. That was quite a while ago, shortly after we started seeing them in guides I believe.

I believe knowing the author's denomination for theology books is just as important as knowing it for commentaries.

In the last year or two at least I 've noticed more and more books coming through without any author records in Factbook, so it seems this has slipped down on the priorities list.

Thanks to Andrew's spreadsheet I have been able to fill in some of the gaps, but Logos really needs to provide this information in Factbook. Another job for AI [:P]