Peer Review

The Perseus Digital Library

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Dec 14, 2001 by World Languages

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: Perseus is a digital library whose stated aim is to
bring a wide range of source materials to as large
an audience as possible. It has eight collections:
Classics, Papyri, Renaissance, London, California,
Upper Midwest, Chesapeake, and Tufts History. After
a detailed overview of the Classics' collection, comes
a brief summary of the remaining ones.

The Classics' collection has primary texts, site plans,
digital images, maps, and secondary resources. Primary
texts offer over 150 works in the original Greek and
Latin, with an English translation for most, from
about 50 Latin and Greek authors. Art and archaeology
include over 1,500 vases, over 1,800 sculptures and
sculptural groups, over 1,200 coins, hundreds of buildings
from nearly 100 sites, and over 100 gems. Over half
the images from Perseus 2.0 CD ROM are available on
line.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: **NOTE: Beginning with this section reviewers offer a general
review of the Classics' collection. Due to the quantity
of material Perseus offers, it reflects the way they
utilize the resource and is targeted to the audience
of the World Languages category within MERLOT.
The combination of Greek and Latin primary and secondary
text resources and tools is unparalleled on the web.
Although users will lament the absence of certain
resources, as it stands, Perseus provides a wide range
of source materials.
Concerns:: The decision to list primary texts by author in alphabetical
order is not agreeable to all--some will prefer keeping
Greek and Latin authors separate. The list of these
authors could be streamlined. Currently, each work--original
and translation--is listed separately. It would facilitate
browsing if the original and translations were combined
in the initial index, one listing for each author,
with the additional information offered within parentheses.
In this way, the three entries for Catullus:

C. Valerius Catullus. Carmina. ed. E. T. Merrill.
(Latin) (Catul.)

Gaius Valerius Catullus. Carmina. ed. Sir Richard
Francis Burton. (English) (Catul.)

Gaius Valerius Catullus. Carmina. ed. Leonard C. Smithers.
(English) (Catul.)

become one: C. Valerius Catullus. Carmina (Latin:
E.T. Merrill; English: Sir Richard Francis Burton;
English: Leonard C. Smithers)

Teachers who send their students to Perseus because
of the morphological analyser will want this tool
improved. The entry for kai, Odyssey 1.10,
is misglossed as 'and'; the entry for peri, 1.66,
is misidentified as a preposition; autoisin, 1.143,
is misglossed as the article. In Latin these occur
as well: quis (Tac. Ann. 4.32.2) is misidentified
as nominative and interrogative, and situs (4.33.3)
is misglossed as a participle. Sometimes words are
glossed without offering definitions. The analyzer
correctly identifies many more forms than it misses,
and as such is still a valuable tool. It would be
helpful, nonetheless, if it were more accurate.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: Pioneers in the evolving field of digital libraries,
the Perseus team continually strives to offer fast,
effective, and accurate tools for accessing an enormous
(and growing) amount of data. The Classics collection
offers countless uses to students, researchers, and
teachers of the Greco-Roman world. It is readily used
by students, just beginning to read the languages
or investigate history and culture, and by advanced
researchers. Teachers will find it helpful for supplementing
instruction or designing courses around it. In sum,
for each user, a different Perseus.
Concerns:: Perseus has evolved much over the years both in data
and tools. The Perseus Team regularly solicits input
from its users and has clearly grown from it. The
reviewers commend the cutting-edge improvements in
presentation and tools-for-access that Perseus has
been making and hope they continue.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: On the whole the Perseus site is easily navigable.
Reviewers tested the images and texts on a Pentium
III connected via modem at 44kps to simulate minimal
connection speed. Even under these conditions, all
texts and images loaded with excellent speed. Greek
Set view preferences are easy to use, and configuring
the Greek display is easy even for the novice. Greek
fonts download in seconds and install cleanly. Notation
of tested browsers (includes several versions of Netscape
and IE) is helpful. Mac support is a plus.

Within Classical Texts, links to word-study aids are
very helpful or can be removed from the preference
page (with cookies enabled your preferences are remembered)
for use of a clean text. Switching between the original
and English translation is smooth. Hyperlinking of
commentary cross-references neatly exploits the benefits
of an online commentary.
Concerns:: Some of Perseus' search tools will be reviewed soon
in specific. In general, although all of the individual
tools are quite valuable, the abundance of tools displayed
on each page can be distracting and can make it difficult
to find what is needed. The word-search engine, for
example, is easily lost. One solution may be to allow
browsers a view tools on/off button. On the Greek
and Roman materials page, an alphabetical key at top
of page is a must. Changing the navigational panel
at top from underlined text to buttons would enhance
the user experience. The link to configure the Greek
display should be more prominent. Although the go-to
feature makes navigation within texts fast and accurate,
a key to the abbreviations used in this tool would
be helpful. Student users who are less familiar with
the breadth of an authors work and text notation
would benefit from the inclusion of a clickable chapter
index at the top of the page. Scrolling through a
horizontal, rather than the current vertical, Table
of Contents for each author is more expedient.
The blue-line navigation is so imprecise that it should
be scrapped.

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