Logos 8 Theology Guide

David McKay
David McKay Member Posts: 58
edited November 2024 in English Forum

I'm trialling Logos 8 using Connect Essentials and my existing Logos 7 Gold library. I'm finding the Theology Guide a bit hit and miss. Have you tried it, yet?
For example, some subjects I've looked up do not link to resources I own when I think they should have, while others do. 
Sometimes it links to relevant bits in Calvin's Institutes, but not other times, when there would have been plenty to draw from. 

How are you finding it?

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  • Sean
    Sean Member Posts: 1,782 ✭✭✭

    I'm trialling Logos 8 using Connect Essentials and my existing Logos 7 Gold library. I'm finding the Theology Guide a bit hit and miss. Have you tried it, yet?
    For example, some subjects I've looked up do not link to resources I own when I think they should have, while others do. 
    Sometimes it links to relevant bits in Calvin's Institutes, but not other times, when there would have been plenty to draw from. 

    How are you finding it?

    It is extremely hit and miss. They have barely started the work on it. Personally, I don't think it should have been released in its present condition.

    It's been discussed a lot on the forum, the longest thread being this one: http://community.logos.com/forums/t/173727.aspx?PageIndex=1 

  • Sean Boisen
    Sean Boisen Member, Logos Employee Posts: 1,452

    I'm trialling Logos 8 using Connect Essentials and my existing Logos 7 Gold library. I'm finding the Theology Guide a bit hit and miss. Have you tried it, yet?
    For example, some subjects I've looked up do not link to resources I own when I think they should have, while others do. 
    Sometimes it links to relevant bits in Calvin's Institutes, but not other times, when there would have been plenty to draw from. 

    How are you finding it?

    David, we've only fully aligned five resources so far (those are displayed in the Systematic Theologies section). It's manual work, so that's all we have so far: but our intention is eventually to align all the systematic theology resources in Logos, and then Calvin and many others will be displayed there.

    The links in Recommend Reading are a selective list from the author of the individual survey articles: they are not intended to be comprehensive (and they include resources that aren't in Logos, if the author felt they were important).

  • Donovan R. Palmer
    Donovan R. Palmer Member, MVP Posts: 2,689

    The links in Recommend Reading are a selective list from the author of the individual survey articles: they are not intended to be comprehensive (and they include resources that aren't in Logos, if the author felt they were important).

    To aid with helping users proactively understand this, would it be worthing considering rather than co-mingling these author recommendations in this report, that a new section with a user friendly section heading be created which explains the origin and that these are not Logos resources?

  • Sean Boisen
    Sean Boisen Member, Logos Employee Posts: 1,452

    The links in Recommend Reading are a selective list from the author of the individual survey articles: they are not intended to be comprehensive (and they include resources that aren't in Logos, if the author felt they were important).

    To aid with helping users proactively understand this, would it be worthing considering rather than co-mingling these author recommendations in this report, that a new section with a user friendly section heading be created which explains the origin and that these are not Logos resources?

    That's why they're in a distinct section labeled Recommended Reading: they're the author's recommended readings on the topic. While the Systematic Theologies section will continue to grow as we annotate more resources with the Survey of Theology categories, that's not the case for the Recommended Reading links.

    We haven't produced dataset documentation yet for the Lexham Systematic Theology Ontology (the data structure behind the Survey of Theology and Theology Guide), but we'll describe these sections when we do.

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,889

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • Francis
    Francis Member Posts: 3,823 ✭✭✭

    Sean said:

    I don't think it should have been released in its present condition

    The more things change, the more they remain the same.

  • Damian McGrath
    Damian McGrath Member Posts: 3,051 ✭✭✭

    While the Systematic Theologies section will continue to grow as we annotate more resources with the Survey of Theology categories, that's not the case for the Recommended Reading links.

    I think that is a really unfortunate decision. 

    Does this mean that even if some articles are revised because they miss the mark that changes will not be made?

    Surely the text will undergo major revisions. Is this a case of never say never?

  • Sean Boisen
    Sean Boisen Member, Logos Employee Posts: 1,452

    MJ. Smith said:

    You'll be pleased to know I think I found the first error Geeked

    BUG? In theology guide content

    You'll never know how many bugs we found and fixed before anybody noticed ...

  • Sean Boisen
    Sean Boisen Member, Logos Employee Posts: 1,452

    While the Systematic Theologies section will continue to grow as we annotate more resources with the Survey of Theology categories, that's not the case for the Recommended Reading links.

    I think that is a really unfortunate decision. 

    Does this mean that even if some articles are revised because they miss the mark that changes will not be made?

    Surely the text will undergo major revisions. Is this a case of never say never?

    This is a hybrid set of content that combines prose, data, and resource annotation. I'm not claiming the prose is fixed forevermore: only that, for consistency and management, if we make substantial changes to the prose, we're effectively producing a new edition, and we should (for reasons of citation if nothing else) publish and indicate it as such. We have definite plans to continue annotating resources with LSTO categories to add to the Systematic Theologies section of the Theology Guide. We're still determining what changes might be appropriate to make to the prose.

  • Damian McGrath
    Damian McGrath Member Posts: 3,051 ✭✭✭

    Sean,

    I was referring to the recommended resources section in my comments.

    I think it would be unfortunate if these did not grow. A survey of theology should not, imho, refer simply to systematic theologies but also to theological treatises. There are, for example, numerous works available in Logos, on the sacraments, from various perspectives. Some of these could and, again imho, should be in recommended resources.

    Also, there are references throughout to the Catechism of the Catholic Church but not the same references to the Augsburg Confession.

  • SineNomine
    SineNomine Member Posts: 7,043 ✭✭✭

    I believe that the Recommend Reading sections are prose.

    “The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara

  • Whyndell Grizzard
    Whyndell Grizzard Member Posts: 3,502 ✭✭✭

    The expansion of this guide should be top priority for a specific team- I would expect to see the full roll out done within 6-8 months.

  • Sean Boisen
    Sean Boisen Member, Logos Employee Posts: 1,452

    I believe that the Recommend Reading sections are prose.

    By "prose" above, I meant the paragraphs of prose in each article, not the list of bibliographic citations in Recommended Reading. If we do make substantial revisions to article prose, that might also warrant changes to Recommended Reading. But that section was never intended to be a comprehensive bibliography on the topic: instead, it's a selective set of citations, chosen by the individual contributor to supplement their perspective on the topic, as expressed in their article.

    The Systematic Theologies section will grow over time, however, to become comprehensive (with respect to resources in Logos).

  • SineNomine
    SineNomine Member Posts: 7,043 ✭✭✭

    But that section was never intended to be a comprehensive bibliography on the topic: instead, it's a selective set of citations, chosen by the individual contributor to supplement their perspective on the topic, as expressed in their article.

    The interesting aspect to me is just how frequently people seem to think/expect/want it to be something else.

    “The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,889

    But that section was never intended to be a comprehensive bibliography on the topic: instead, it's a selective set of citations, chosen by the individual contributor to supplement their perspective on the topic, as expressed in their article.

    The interesting aspect to me is just how frequently people seem to think/expect/want it to be something else.

    Okay, I give in and do the expected. If someone cares enough to assemble a comprehensive bibliography, we have Reading Lists to build, share and maintain such bibliographies.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."