Catholic Version of the Church Fathers

Mark Barnes said:

Why should Migne references be the standard?

Because it is the most comprehensive set of Early churches fathers - Greek, Latin and Oriental - to be available and/or in pre-pub-community pricing. Therefore the approximately 500 other early church fathers resources currently available would be most apt to have a corresponding entry in Migne. If you have datatypes for the documents in Migne, you've not reached perfection but you can go a long time between having to invent new datatypes. The references should work similarly to Biblical/Deuterocanonical/Aporcyphal references ... especially since there is overlap between those categories and the Early Church Fathers. Schaff is a small percentage of the problem of a consistent and predictable referencing system for the patristic writings. (See https://community.logos.com/forums/p/86875/609927.aspx) We already can handle two editions of Schaff and have done so in personal books and reading lists except in some limited and annoying cases such as when long and short versions are inseparable by reference and the cases such as you pointed out where only a page number is available ... but that also is not common.

Louis St. Hilaire said:

fgh said:

Does this mean that links to the ECF will now open whichever version the user owns (or has prioritized), and that we no longer have to provide two links for every reference in e g Reading Lists?

This update doesn't specifically address this limitation, but for locations covered by a specific (i.e. not just page) data type, it is already the case that you can accomplish this by using the "logosref" protocol instead of "logosres". e.g.; logosref:Augustine.De_civ._Dei_12 will take you to City of God 12 in any resource that contains that location.

Edit: Put another way, Migne is referenced in my library 32,582 times in 1,124 resources making it a defacto "standard"; Schaff without being limited to his Church fathers only nets 223 resources.

Mark Barnes said:

MJ. Smith said:

If you have datatypes for the documents in Migne, you've not reached perfection but you can go a long time between having to invent new datatypes.

I understand the important of Migne, but I don't understand why datatypes ought to be based on it. To use Louis' example, why is logosref:Migne_XX_33_4 better than logosref:Augustine.De_civ._Dei_12?

Ah, you mis-understand. I'm not proposing logosref:Migne_XX_33_4, I'm proposing (insisting even) that the rules to generate Augustine.De_Civ._Dei  have to cover all documents in Migne and need to be "implemented" for all of Migne so that new resources are not released without datatypes because of the work required to create new datatypes. The thread referenced by myself in the prior post gives an example of a new resource released without datatypes for this reason.

Put another way, think of Schaff as the Protestant canon, Migne as the Catholic canon and the newer (incomplete) series as the broader Coptic canon. Logos discovered the problems caused by a design that treated the Protestant canon as the whole of "canon" and are still suffering some unfortunate consequences. I'm saying rather than repeating previous errors, find new ones by at least setting the Patristic limits at "catholic (Migne)" rather than continuing this fix one document reference; release two more problems (resources without required Patristic datatypes).

MJ. Smith said:

Mark Barnes said:

Why should Migne references be the standard?

Because it is the most comprehensive set of Early churches fathers - Greek, Latin and Oriental - to be available and/or in pre-pub-community pricing. Therefore the approximately 500 other early church fathers resources currently available would be most apt to have a corresponding entry in Migne. If you have datatypes for the documents in Migne, you've not reached perfection but you can go a long time between having to invent new datatypes. The references should work similarly to Biblical/Deuterocanonical/Aporcyphal references ... especially since there is overlap between those categories and the Early Church Fathers. 

Making Migne the reference of what datatypes need to be created is a fantastic idea, even if it would be a bit of work to set up. If Faithlife wanted to, it could even allow them to go ahead and markup with datatype hyperlinks references to those writings of the early Church that don't yet exist in Faithlife's catalogue, and which could then be simply activated when the resources exist in the future. 

It is interesting, for example, how even many of the works in the Catholic U. Fathers of the Church series don't have datatypes! When I asked why they weren't being included in the Ancient Literature section, the reason was there wasn't a datatype... but these authors are in Migne, and are often very important for the history of interpretation or of theology. 

It would be a lot of work to implement, but would be very useful for the foreseeable future to make Logos & Verbum a much more powerful platform to study the Church Fathers and Ecclesiastical Writers, and provide a solid foundation for future development of features (like Ancient Literature, Catholic Topical Guide, etc.).

As Faithlife is now beginning to develop more datatypes that deal with history of interpretation and of theology, now is probably the right time to take on a project like this.

Mark Barnes said:

I hate to say it, but I think you're banging a broken drum with your insistence that Faithlife tag links to all documents included in Migne,

I hate to say it, but I think you are missing the point with your insistence that the problem is NOT fundamentally datatypes.[:P] Had Logos used datatypes exclusively initially the problem of "two editions of Schaff" would not exist ... just as it does not exist in all resources now but only in a subset. I do not consider it unreasonable that Logos link all primary sources which include the Church Fathers and the primary rabbinic literature ... far more useful to broader range of users than links to Calvin. It is, in fact, both easier and cheaper in the long run to set standards by which datatypes are generated, generate and add them than to do it piecemeal as additional resources are added. If Faithlife doesn't integrate all the broad base primary literature, some other company will to Faithlife's detriment. Integrated research libraries which Faithlife advertises must be just that.

As for Louis, I do not read into his post what you do nor do I believe his position has been unchanged - he is primarily explaining the difficulties with the current system which are what I believe should be resolved

Louis St. Hilaire said:

Creating new data types and training the tagging team to use them can require a lot of work (adding significant delays to any pre-pub that requires a new or updated data type), so we try to prioritize things that are most commonly cited or essential for basic resource functionality

Like you, he misinterpreted my request re: Migne columns vs. documents but that is quickly resolved.

Mark Barnes said:

A much more sensible — and reasonable — target is that all existing writings have datatypes, and new datatypes are created as resources are released.

No, that simply perpetuates the current problems. The solution is to standardize rules for datatypes and establish them in advance so that they are available before a resource enters pre-pub. This is in line with industry best practices, the work-flow logic and common sense.

Mark Barnes said:

Both sets have been in Community Pricing for since 2012 — three years! — and have about 5% of the bids required. At that rate, you'll have met the original authors long before it arrives in Logos!

My proposal would be the same whether or not Migne was in pre-pub or not. And given how recently Logos made any serious move into the Patristics market - Schaff scarcely counts for research purposes - and given the major series that took the Patristic market $$$ ... I am not surprised. Assuming that Faithlife is successful in its foray into the Catholic-Orthodox-Anglican market, the customer base for Migne will come ... assuming that the "integrated library" sales balloon doesn't burst under the weight of reality.

Mark Barnes said:

For me, it's more of an issue that FotC isn't fully supported

For me it is an issue that the early fathers of the Church are not supported of which Schaff's FofC is, for many, the prime example. Why? Because of its inclusion in base packages.

Mark Barnes said:

I feel that it's asking too much for Logos to create reference links to writings that may never exist in Logos format, and it would be better to set a more realistic target which is to at have datatypes for all patristic writings that do already exist.

Hm. Today's Verbum advent gift, the Navarre Bible commentary on Luke seems to make a point or two for a Migne-compatible datatype. Footnotes there source e.g. the writings of Jerome simply as something like "PL 26,17" which if course is no link anywhere (could in my library link to page 495 of NPNF2.6). Of course this would be something like JeromePrefCommMatt but Logos would know that PL 26,17 refers there - and that I can see this in the NPNF 2.6 work (like when a Qumran citation is made and linked - and Power Lookup even tells me "you have no resource that contains this reference, but you could buy a, b or c")

Needless to say that the editors of Navarre felt no need to put "PL = patrologia latina" into a list of abbreviations that even explains f/ff, ibid. and v.  

Turretin, Francis. Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Edited by James T. Dennison Jr. Translated by George Musgrave Giger. Vol. 1–3. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1992–1997. is a good example of where Migne is used as a common reference not as a source since Migne was born after Turretin's death.

Catholics are conditioned to see references as pointers not as quotations. Church documents almost always have "paragraph" numbers and perhaps additional levels above. A reference is the same whether the quotation is given in English, Spanish, Latin, Chinese. Migne is used in much the same way as shown above in a Reformed resource..

Mark Barnes said:

If you'd like that link to open in NPNF even though you don't own Migne, then you'd need Logos to create Migne datatypes for all the fathers, then create alignments and add Migne Milestones to the 200 odd volumes of NPNF, ANF, Fathers of the Church, and the Ancient Christian Fathers. That isn't going to happen.

Are you a betting man? The need is so obvious and so broad it will happen - although, I suspect, with a slightly different implementation strategy. The question is simply when - unless, of course, they go out of business.

NAPS guidelines for journal submission:

Abbreviations. You may abbreviate the titles of ancient texts. For Latin patristic literature, please use the abbreviations in the Dictionnaire Latin-Français des auteurs chrétiens; for Greek patristic literature, please consult Lampe’s Patristic Greek Lexicon. For classical sources, please see the Oxford Latin Dictionary and the Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek Lexicon. Do not use a comma between the ancient author and text when using an abbreviated title (see examples below).

Mark Barnes said:

I'm completely with your "analogous to Bible Verse Mapping" idea for datatypes that actually exist, (I've argued for it previously for the DSS), and I'm completely with trying to create a market for Migne so we can get it in production. But if I've understood both of you, your proposal is not what MJ is saying, They're different solutions to the same problem.

For the record, my own preference would be:

1. Make every effort to get Migne paid for and into production.
2. In producing Migne, milestones for Migne vol/page, and for existing author datatype milestones. That will ensure prioritisation can be used for existing reference links, and existing reference links can open in Migne.
3. Over time, add links to Migne for the most important existing works that specifically reference Migne.
4. Although I haven't proposed it on this thread, I'd also support your suggestion of a system analogous to Bible mapping for Patristic and other datatypes that have alternative referencing schemes. It would have be done very carefully though, so it didn't mess up prioritisation rules.

Sounds good, Mark. I agree with your proposal as expressed here. 

As well, regarding number 3, I tend to think that the Migne reference system is regular enough that when Faithlife is ready to add datatype links to already existing Migne references in other works, that they should be able to simply create scripts that go through existing resources and add in the links to all existing resources, not just high priority ones. I may be wrong about that, but the reference system is as universal, straightforward, and simple as they come (e.g. PL 16, 389-410), so it is my hope, anyway.

Actually, that is also why I don't see creating all the possible datatypes at the same time as a big deal either, as MJ proposes. The references are just PL plus two numbers or PG plus two numbers! I have been envisioning it as a one or two massive datatypes for all of Migne. Then, you add in verse mapping to hook it up to other datatypes. No need to create "other" datatypes of fathers not found in other resources, until they are found in other resources. With the simple creation of PL and PG, you've already done the work. Then you just map.

Regarding number 4, wouldn't creating a system analogous to Bible Verse Mapping for Patristic, etc. authors basically fulfill what MJ was proposing about adding Migne milestones to Schaff, CUAFOTC, etc., at least in the end result for the user?

i.e., you summarize one of MJ's points as:

Mark Barnes said:

Adds Migne milestones to all Patrisitic documents so that people without Migne (everyone!) are able to access documents in Schaff or Fathers of the Church or Ancient Christian Writers, using Migne datatypes.

If a system analogous to verse mapping is done, I think the end result would be that a user who does not own PG or PL could click on a PG and PL link, and if the verse mapping happens to line up to an existing Schaff resource, Schaff would open, as it would be the highest prioritized resource with that "mapped verse". Or is that not the case?

And, if it isn't the case, or if there is other functionality that would be missing without the datatypes as MJ imagined them, my guess is that once verse mapping has been done, if parallel datatypes do need to be added in say to Schaff or to CUAFOTC, wouldn't it just be a matter of a script to run through the verse mappings table and automatically add in the parallel datatype references to resources? The presupposition that this is the case was why I saw a system analogous to verse mapping as what MJ was proposing, because I saw them as going hand in hand, even though she had never explicitly proposed verse mapping (that I remember anyway).

This discussion was prompted by this post:

MJ. Smith said:

I have a grander vision to include all Church Father documents ... the datatype scheme should be based on Migne at a minimum and then applied across the various available editions of the Church Fathers ... of which Schaff is the one I use lea

Generating the following question:

Mark Barnes said:

Why should Migne references be the standard? Surely the standard ought to be specific datatypes for each document (which is what we currently have, for the most part). The main issue here is not that we don't have a good enough datatype, the main issue here is that many resources refer specifically to a vol/page number Schaff, and we need to be able to handle that for two editions.

To which I replied:

MJ. Smith said:

Because it is the most comprehensive set of Early churches fathers - Greek, Latin and Oriental - to be available and/or in pre-pub-community pricing. Therefore the approximately 500 other early church fathers resources currently available would be most apt to have a corresponding entry in Migne. If you have datatypes for the documents in Migne, you've not reached perfection but you can go a long time between having to invent new datatypes. The references should work similarly to Biblical/Deuterocanonical/Aporcyphal references ... especially since there is overlap between those categories and the Early Church Fathers. Schaff is a small percentage of the problem of a consistent and predictable referencing system for the patristic writings. (See https://community.logos.com/forums/p/86875/609927.aspx) We already can handle two editions of Schaff and have done so in personal books and reading lists except in some limited and annoying cases such as when long and short versions are inseparable by reference and the cases such as you pointed out where only a page number is available ... but that also is not common.

Getting the response:

Mark Barnes said:

I understand the important of Migne, but I don't understand why datatypes ought to be based on it. To use Louis' example, why is logosref:Migne_XX_33_4 better than logosref:Augustine.De_civ._Dei_12?

To which I gave the following clarification:

MJ. Smith said:

Ah, you mis-understand. I'm not proposing logosref:Migne_XX_33_4, I'm proposing (insisting even) that the rules to generate Augustine.De_Civ._Dei  have to cover all documents in Migne and need to be "implemented" for all of Migne so that new resources are not released without datatypes because of the work required to create new datatypes. The thread referenced by myself in the prior post gives an example of a new resource released without datatypes for this reason.

Put another way, think of Schaff as the Protestant canon, Migne as the Catholic canon and the newer (incomplete) series as the broader Coptic canon. Logos discovered the problems caused by a design that treated the Protestant canon as the whole of "canon" and are still suffering some unfortunate consequences. I'm saying rather than repeating previous errors, find new ones by at least setting the Patristic limits at "catholic (Migne)" rather than continuing this fix one document reference; release two more problems (resources without required Patristic datatypes).

I have in another thread suggested a tool to help with unlinked references which would likely be handled by a mapping routine. Turretin's work is a prime example of why such a mapping and associated tool is needed.

But since Bob has stated they've got it covered:

Bob Pritchett said:

Better (great!) Migne support is planned for the future, but is not imminent. 

I will continue to push for more foresight and less expediency ... and some tools and updates needed for the current situation.

I hope this clarifies what I did or did not propose.

Mark Barnes said:

For me, if I was tackling Patristic datatypes then step one would be to fix the Protestant/Catholic problems with Schaff, step 2 would be to create datatypes and implement milestones for existing resources (which should have happened before those books were released), and step 3 — if there was any money left — would be what you're suggesting. But if we can't even do step 1, I'm not sure step 3 is realistic, and I fear that aiming to step (3) will complicate and distract from what could be done in steps (1) and (2).

My experience in IT has taught me to solve the basic problem rather than each manifestation as it comes along. Doing the latter almost always results in cases arising that you'd not taken into consideration that "screw things up", duplicate training and documentation time, etc. Plus my thought patterns tend to be top down when they aren't truth tables.

Mark Barnes said:

What I'm saying is that it's almost impossible to to make links from references like the one in my example above unless we have author/work datatypes in addition to Schaff and Migne datatypes. Creating a Migne datatype on its own will only help for reference that explicitly refer to Migne, and that solves only a fraction of the problem.

Thanks, Mark. We actually agree about this - my suggestion of mapping implies what you state here, as well as my suggestion that the author/work datatypes (which I was simply referring to as "other" datatypes of fathers) be created as need be when other resources exist of those works. 

I also agree about your proposed order of priorities. 

The only thing I would add is that MJ's suggestion of planning ahead about how the datatypes will be named need not be something that imply much work at all... and honestly maybe doesn't require much more work than a clear decision. For me, the essential thing is really that Faithlife commit to add new author_work datatype as the works are produced for any work found in Migne, with the eventual goal of mapping to the Migne datatype once Migne is produced, being able to include them in tools like Ancient Literature, etc. It doesn't have to be too complicated, I don't think. In fact, they already have a pretty clear scheme about how the datatypes will work for ancient writings. What has been lacking is the will to make them.

As well, I would see mapping as a relatively straightforward decision as well. It should simply be considered a part of production costs of each Migne volume, to be done volume by volume as they are produced. If it means waiting longer for each volume of Migne, then let's wait longer. But when each volume comes out, I hope it's mapped to author_work and to Schaff.

Finally, may I point out that all of this might cost radically less than what Faithlife initially estimated... [:)] at least if Faithlife is able to partner with the University of Leipzig. They have decided to digitalize Migne themselves and offer it as open source to the world for free.  A good chunk of Patrologia Latina is done in rough draft form. And they are working on PG as well. CSEL is also included in their list of works to tackle, and it looks like they already have a rough draft of volumes 1-67 of that series (I have close to 8000 references to CSEL in my library). This is the same type of project that brought us the Perseus collection (in fact, they have officially joined forces with Perseus). 

Anyway, I'm not sure if Faithlife has been in touch with them, but certainly a partnership worth considering!