Suggestion: "text" category under SEARCHES

With Logos offerings multiplying and MyLibrary expanding (little by little) all the time, I realize that I need to know what I have so I can get the most out of Logos. Just like a tangible bookshelf in the real world, I have to work at maintaining my ability to navigate my cyber-bookshelf in Logos.

But ... as our Libraries grow, our SEARCH tools can really help us as they too grow (proportionally) with the size of the Libraries. Search capacity is one of this program's greatest strengths and I hope that there continues to be the dedication to this area as to other categories. [I know that there is and I can't wait to see what is next]

My suggestion is that there be a way to quickly get to the historical texts, documents and formulations in our Libraries via some tagging or ref. device. It would make possible something like a TEXT category - much like the TOPIC category that comes up in Searches that use the ENTIRE LIBRARY. If we had such a tool, we could find here things the actual text of (not just references to or such): creeds and catecisms, council decrees, Dead Sea Scrolls texts, Pseudepigrapha texts, theses, midrashic texts, etc.

The idea is that when we search for something, we could find the precise reference to the actual text without wading through a list of 1,000's of references to this text. Just like TOPICS is being improved, it would make searches more efficient for us when what we really want is some original, historic text. It could open up to the Topic page or TOC of that resource, but we would have ready access in a split second. There are already many original historic texts in Logos. Linking these to a new Search category would bring them to the surface quicker and would help in times when I forget where to look in order to find a particular text.

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Comments

Donnie Hale

I want to make sure I understand your suggestion.

A hypothetical is that you know a word or phrase from some historical text, and you want to search for the primary resource in which that historical text appears without getting results for every place that the word / phrase might be used in other contexts or perhaps in discussions about the historical text in question.

Do I have that right? If not, maybe a very specific example might help.

Thanks,

Donnie

Ron Corbett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/206507#Comment_206507

A hypothetical is that you know a word or phrase from some historical text, and you want to search for the primary resource in which that historical text appears without getting results for every place that the word / phrase might be used in other contexts or perhaps in discussions about the historical text in question.

Do I have that right?

Yes Donnie,

Or, if you are reading about a particular Council: Logos would intuitively KNOW that this is an historic document or text and put it in its own seperate space. It would be he same for a Dead Sea Scrolls book, or something like "Shepherd of Hermas", or Westminster Confession. A phrase search would not simply bring up all the places these are mentioned as part of a statement someone is making or quoting, but show us the specific place where we can open it and look at the actual book / text itself.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/206714#Comment_206714

Or, if you are reading about a particular Council: Logos would intuitively KNOW that this is an historic document or text and put it in its own seperate space. It would be he same for a Dead Sea Scrolls book, or something like "Shepherd of Hermas", or Westminster Confession.

Another place to start such a search is Library. Type the phrase in the Find box with quotes for a tighter result and it will search the resource metadata eg. title, description, subject matter, series.

"Westminster Confession" immediately brings up the three relevant "Westminster" resources. "Council of Trent", however, brings up 3 Latin bibles! But you can refine those searches using fields like title or series eg. title:"Westminster Confession".

"Shepherd of Hermas" draws a blank in Library but the Logos Controlled Vocabulary (LCV) has Topic entries in two of my bible dictionaries.

The "intuitively KNOW" requirement is absent from these methods but it requires a similar (managed) vocabulary to LCV. This sounds like a suggestion for User Voice.

Ron Corbett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/206739#Comment_206739

Dave,

Thanks, I created a Suggestion there called:

Create a Search category for TEXT

I appreciate your research on this idea. I did some of my own too.

Some of my results:

Type "Westminster Confession" into the Search field with By Title selected: (I get) 1,413 articles in 472 resources. With Ranked selected, I get in the 4th entry the Title Page of the document. (pretty good)
Apostle's Creed; first entry under Ranked produced the result.
Just as an example, did a search on "Shepherd of Hermas" and the 16th entry is the Apocryphal NT which takes you to the TEXT of this work. OK, not bad - if I know that what I want is in there. [I passed over 6 entries for the Ante-Nicene Fathers - is the full text found anywhere in there? Don't know. There is a long list under By Title and somewhere in there is the text.] Under Ranked, the 38th entry brings me to an actual translation.
The "Temple Scroll" from Qumran which is the longest of the scrolls may be linked to the original language texts, but I don't have that. There can be found in some of the search results many blue hyper-text links to the passage, but they are not attached to any English Translation - or not to any one that I have.

I wanted to check on some Historic Church Councils too, but don't know if I have those texts anywhere in my Collection.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/206877#Comment_206877

I wanted to check on some Historic Church Councils too, but don't know if I have those texts anywhere in my Collection.

I got relevant hits on "Church Councils", but I don't have have the specific resources! At least you have some alternatives to explore your resource library.