Akkadica
Assyriological Center
Georges Dossin
Georges Dossin
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Akkadica Assyriological Center
Georges Dossin |
Conspectus Librorum - Book Review:
List price $ 89.00 Canadian, + 8% shipping and handling, + taxes Orders: abginnovations@sympatico.ca The present CD-ROM devised for Microsoft Windows 95 or later, comprises a most versatile electronic database with multiple index and search functions. Other applications include a.o. the possibility to print data and search results as well as hard-copy manuals for optimal use of this indispensable companion to both of the author's recent volumes on Babylonian year-names (The Year-Names of the First Dynasty of Babylon,1, Chronological matters: The Year-Name System and the Date-Lists; 2, The Year-Names Reconstructed and Critically Annotated in Light of their Exemplars, Hamilton (McMaster University Press), Ontario 1999). The first of the seven main views at disposal indeed contains a critical apparatus, the better part of which is absent in the printed volumes. The primary data compiled in the second main view contain no less than over 7,300 texts in transliteration on the CD-ROM, the equivalent of twenty-five 300 page printed books! In a third main view, bibliographical details for the copies of the year-formulae are found, keyed to the Year-Formulae view like references to secondary publications in the fourth main view. Curators and scholars alike are offered easy reference to museum files in a next main view, where users will occasionally have to turn to the Museum Directory of our Akkadica website to update the information on phone, fax and e-mail numbers or curators in charge. The last screens finally, are devoted to provenances and detailed bibliography. Professor Emeritus Horsnell is to be thanked for this impressively rich harvest of (new) data made available to the field of ancient Near Eastern studies, as well as for his choice of the electronic medium to supplement his previous contributions. ABG Innovations, the developer and distributor of this CD-ROM on behalf of the publisher, offers academic institutions, museums, libraries and individual scholars worldwide a most efficient and reasonably priced tool; hopefully the financial return will allow this company to consider a network version in the future. Eric Gubel |