To LOGOS: New resource type? (esp. L. St. Hilaire, A. Jones and G. Martini)

MJ. Smith said:

I see a new resource type Reading Cycle for Daf Yomi: Cycle 13 Does this mean that Biblical "lectionaries" have their own resource type? If so, was this decision made taking into account the Office of Readings which combines Biblical and Patristic readings? This is one of many examples of such mixtures.

The distinction in lectionary types between Biblical and non-Biblical was long-standing (parallel to what we have with commentaries, cross-references, etc.). We just weren't handling it correctly on the UI because, prior to the Daf Yomi reading cycle, we had no non-Biblical lectionaries.

The Liturgy of the Hours is an interesting case. While it may use dynamic text, I don't know that we'll class it as a lectionary. With the expansion of the types of liturgical books we carry, we're going to be looking at more complete solutions for making them all work together.

MJ. Smith said:

Does Logos intend to build more of the traditional reading cycles or should I try to build them as shareable PB's?

We're probably going to be focusing on lectionaries that are most in demand. I'm working with Gabe on creating an Orthodox lectionary and have my eyes on at least a couple of other projects (contact me if you want specifics), so creating PBs may be the way to go for at least some of these, especially for ones that don't require alignment with the secular calendar.

MJ. Smith said:

If so, are there any quirks to the dynamic links that I need to know ... assuming I link initially to Schaff's ECF collections? Is there a way yet to link independent of the version owned (Catholic or Protestant)?

Dynamic text relies on data type references. Data types work with any resource that includes the proper milestones, so, just as a lectionary of Scriptural readings can pull from any Bible resource, the different editions of ECF shouldn't be a problem. The only patristic readings I see that you submitted are the ones from ChurchYear.com. Everything in there appears to be supported by data types.

MJ. Smith said:

Will Reading Cycles appear in their own segment on the ribbon of the Home Page? Will the ability to have more than one lectionary on the ribbon be fixed to handle the RCL/Daily RCL problem?

I realize this has been a long-standing request of yours, but as things stand, it hasn't been a high priority for us, since most people only use one lectionary. Even with the RCL, the Sunday readings are included in the Daily RCL resource, so it's not apparent to me that it necessitates this capability. Perhaps the ability to create and share PB lectionaries and reading cycles for custom use will change this.

MJ. Smith said:

While I've created the Creation Season Lectionary, I can no share it as it is a PB rather than a document.

We're working on this.

MJ. Smith said:

While the Creation Season Lectionary works fine, it has to be manually updated for future years. It should be driven by simple rules,

This isn't really different from how the lectionaries we've built work. The alignment of the liturgical occasions with the secular calendar is done in the compilation of the resource rather than at run time. The application may get smarter about this in the future, and it's possible that a PB lectionary could piggy back on that somehow. (For instance, you put in the milestones aligning it to a supported liturgical calendar and it uses an alignment between that calendar and the secular calendar that we've built into the application.)

MJ. Smith said:

Are you ever going to let people outside the US or in churches ruled by religious order ordos to customize their lectionary

I can see us building lectionaries for the Roman Liturgy outside the US. (If nothing else, one that just follows the General Roman Calendar.) I can also see the functionality of PB lectionaries improving to make it easier to build one for your own needs. As it stands right now, lectionaries aren't fundamentally different from other resources, so I don't see a custom solution different from PB.

MJ. Smith said:

One final question - have you enjoyed the break in my nagging over lectionaries?

Oh, I knew it was coming sooner or later [;)].

Our main focus for Verbum right now is on making the basics easier and smarter: making it easier for a beginning user to start studying from the readings and make connections between the liturgical texts, the Scriptures and the rest of the library without a lot of setup; and laying the foundation for better integration of liturgical-based data into the whole system.