Fully search the out-of-copyright volumes of the Loeb Classical Library (PDF or Text)

[almound]

Just added to the Internet archive the out-of-copyright, public domain volumes of the Loeb Classical Library. These are near perfect digitizations (UTF-8 format) available as PDF but also in text-only format. To make sure you are not violating any copyright law for your country, please check the links at DownLOEBables to review each volume's usage agreement. https://archive.org/details/@almound

[RandyGibbons]

Curious: What is the advantage of this over just subscribing to (for a reasonable annual feel) the online Loeb Classical Library and using its search capabilities?

[almound]

Curious: What is the advantage of this over just subscribing to (for a reasonable annual feel) the online Loeb Classical Library and using its search capabilities?

I encourage people to support new editions of the Loeb Classical Library. If that search service is enough for someone, by all means use it.

But typically, search capabilities for any library service do not allow for search over the full text of a volume or over multiple volumes. Instead, they work off from keywords in pre-defined fields. Searching over full text versions of the volume(s) enables retrieval of all instances of a word or phrase wherever it occurs, whether in or out of a pre-defined field. Thus, one gets hits from the preface, the index, footnotes, end-notes, etc. and not merely from "allowed" text areas.

In addition, there are a number of search tools available by which to perform a search over texts, whereas any library service is limited to just those search tools compatible with its database. For instance, one can use tools that search over Greek letters regardless of diacritics. Also, one can perform more refined textual analysis than is possible using on-line services. What's more, library services often remove older versions of works or replace them with newer editions without notice.

Back when I began to do basic research into the Greek language, I wish someone had made these files available for that purpose.

[RandyGibbons]

Not that I'm trying to discourage what you're doing, but for the record I haven't experienced any limitation in the online LCL's search capability (you can search within a work or across the entire library). If you don't have access to the online LCL, and you happen to have a representative search key in mind, I'll be happy to try it and see what we get.

[almound]

Not that I'm trying to discourage what you're doing, but for the record I haven't experienced any limitation in the online LCL's search capability (you can search within a work or across the entire library). If you don't have access to the online LCL, and you happen to have a representative search key in mind, I'll be happy to try it and see what we get.

Thanks very much. Let me see if I can come up with something.