Link: http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/index.php?page=Blog
For literary translators (and grateful readers like me), the excellent Words Without Borders blog has an A to Z guide to the current state of the art. Strongly recommended.May 8, 2008
From Helma Dik, Dept. of Classics, University of Chicago.
I am very happy to announce that we now have a new version of the Perseus Latin texts under PhiloLogic.
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/PERSEUS/ Click "Latin Texts and Translations"
Latin texts, specifically, available through the search form at http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/PERSEUS/latin.html
Googling "Perseus under Philologic" will get you to the site easily.
According to Koïchiro Matsuura, director-general of UNESCO: “Languages are indeed essential to the identity of groups and individuals and to their peaceful coexistence. They constitute a strategic factor of progress towards sustainable development and a harmonious relationship between the global and the local context.”
In recognition of the importance of languages, the UN declared 2008 International Year of Languages.
For an overview of the state of language teaching in the US, see Inside Higher Ed's recent article, "But Where Does That Leave French?" The article gives in interesting (and interested) overview of shifts in language demand in the US, predicting an increase in demand for the "more populous of the world’s languages." Written by H. Stephen Straight, professor of anthropology and of linguistics, and vice provost for undergraduate education and international affairs at the State University of New York, the article contains links to reports and statistical information about language demand in US schools and universities.
May 7, 2008
Travel information had changed substantially, and new announcements on the home page necessitated some CSS changes so that popup overlays were not colliding with the new text. At the same time, I linked the conference title to the index page (it should have always been a link -- don't know why it wasn't).
The code on the GRS site which harvests calendar events from the UVic Calendar to display on the index page and the events page was written with the assumption that events more than 100 days in the future were to remote to be worth harvesting. Had to tweak that, because currently the only events in the calendar are for October, and GRS wants them to appear on the site anyway. Not a complicated fix.
We've spent a considerable amount of time in the last couple of days addressing the issue of the precise meaning of the editorial conventions used for the original transcription project, and how the new online version should adopt/modify/expand/formalize them. No decisions yet, but lots of breath and keystrokes expended.
Over the last couple of days, ScanCan has got under way again, with a new research assistant (SM, whom we know from the Lansdowne video project), and a new article for volume 17. I set up a test master for volume 17 with the seven docs we have already, and it comes to only 60-odd pages, so one more article won't be enough, but JT says there are more in the pipeline.
Meanwhile, SM is getting up to speed with XML/TEI, and today started her first markup by working on the <teiHeader> and the bibliography of the new article. Everything's going well, although there are (as always) some bibliography items that don't quite fit any of the existing profiles we have from previous documents, so new policy/conventions/rendering code will be needed.
Greg and I worked on our Rescue presentation for June:
- We wrote the presentation outline, abstracting key points from the abstract to get it down to something that'll work in 20 minutes.
- We decided on S5 as the presentation method (browser-based, cross-platform, etc.).
- I started building the presentation content, along with notes from the abstract, and some new graphics.
- Greg worked on the presentation details, aiming to have a consistent and attractive HCMC/UVic theme we can use in all our presentations.
More of this on Friday...
It seemed cruel and counter-productive to offer non-privileged readers an exciting Snippet, then deny them access to the document it came from because it was not from 1858, so the rendering code now checks for the existence of a Snippet linking to the document, and allows access where one exists.
May 6, 2008
On late duty, and events conspired to nail me to my desk much later than I wanted. Curses. Trying to get a Word-friendly output format from the Despatches for JH....