5.0213 Qs: Etext lists; Grad School for HC; ... (6/122)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Thu, 4 Jul 91 16:06:44 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 5, No. 0213. Thursday, 4 Jul 1991.

(1) Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1991 14:12:12 -0400 (26 lines)
From: mccarty@epas.utoronto.ca (Willard McCarty)
Subject: student looking for school

(2) Date: Friday, 28 Jun 1991 09:14:00 EDT (38 lines)
From: "Stephen McCluskey" <SCMCC@WVNVM>
Subject: Texts for the Electronic Library?

(3) Date: Wed, 03 Jul 91 17:41:13 EDT (9 lines)
From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM>
Subject: Etaoin Shrdlu

(4) Date: Wed, 03 Jul 91 08:43:32 EDT (9 lines)
From: "David R. Chesnutt" <N330004@UNIVSCVM>
Subject: Qs: N.C. School for the Arts

(5) Date: Wed, 3 Jul 91 08:27:30 MDT (19 lines)
From: Dudley Irish <dirish@math.utah.edu>
Subject: Latin Vocabulary Software

(6) Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1991 13:49:21 -0500 (21 lines)
From: Dennis Baron <baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: pc dictionary

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1991 14:12:12 -0400
From: mccarty@epas.utoronto.ca (Willard McCarty)
Subject: student looking for school

A young friend of mine, currently living in Budapest, is looking for a
suitable graduate school at which he might continue his studies. He
will graduate in June 1992, with a double-major in Hungarian & English
languages and literatures. He would like to undertake an M.A.
programme in humanities computing, with an emphasis on literature. His
objective is to complete a dissertation that would serve as a handbook
or guide to the common problems. He has asked me for advice.

How closely can his desires be approximated? At the moment I am
prepared to write back to him suggesting that he consider a Ph.D.
programme in English literature with concentration on computing. I
don't see that his notion of a topic would fit anyone's idea of
a Ph.D. dissertation, and I doubt a master's thesis would be right
either. In any case, he needs to know to what institutions he might
usefully apply. He is very bright, highly motivated, and I suspect
very well instructed so far. His English is excellent, his German also.

Any ideas?

Willard McCarty
mccarty@epas.utoronto.ca

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------47----
Date: Friday, 28 Jun 1991 09:14:00 EDT
From: "Stephen McCluskey" <SCMCC@WVNVM>
Subject: Texts for the Electronic Library?

David Megginson wrote on ANSAX-L:

< The times are gradually changing for academics. Most of the work that we
< do in the libraries is trained monkey work--mechanically counting words,
< skimming obscure 19th-century German monographs for relevant quotations,
< etc.--and within a couple of decades we should be able to do most of it
< by computer, in the comfort of our homes.

Every time I read statements like this I get a bit worried. Who,
pray tell, is going to transfer those obscure 19th-century German
monographs into machine readable form, when so few texts were considered
worth making available in the form of reprints. Reprinting is a simple
photographic process, machine encoding is much more labor intensive,
since even the best scanners make numerous errors and their copy must be
edited.
David might be closer to target when it comes to the texts
themselves; as a newcomer to the computer networks I'm surprised at how
many little-known collections of primary texts are available, especially
for medievalists and classicists where the total body of texts is
manageable. As an example, I was looking through Lapidge & Sharpe's
_Bibliography of Celtic-Latin Literature, 400-1200_ and read in the
preface that the RIA was sponsoring a corpus of Latin texts by Celtic
writers (including that Breton, Peter Abelard) at Queens University,
Belfast. Serendipitous discoveries like this suggest we need a
finding aid.
Does anyone know of an index (printed or computerized) of
machine-readable collections of primary sources? It seems like an
obvious reference tool; when we can pass such a guide on to our
students, the demand for at least parts of Megginson's computerized
library will begin to build.

-- Steve McCluskey
Department of History
West Virginia University

(3) --------------------------------------------------------------15----
Date: Wed, 03 Jul 91 17:41:13 EDT
From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM>
Subject: Etaoin Shrdlu

I have discussed the general problem of letter frequencies in a CS class I
teach and was particularly interested in Lorne Hammond's remark about the
woman who had Etaoin Shrdlu written on her dress. This would make a great
visual for my class. Can Lorne give an exact reference where this is
available?
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------14----
Date: Wed, 03 Jul 91 08:43:32 EDT
From: "David R. Chesnutt" <N330004@UNIVSCVM>
Subject: Qs: N.C. School for the Arts

A colleague wants to know the general reputation and strengths
of the N.C. School for the Arts at Winston-Salem. His neice
(a flautist) is looking for graduate programs in the performing arts.

Please reply directly. Thanks. David Chesnutt (N330004@UNIVSCVM.BITNET)

(5) --------------------------------------------------------------29----
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 91 08:27:30 MDT
From: Dudley Irish <dirish@math.utah.edu>
Subject: Latin Vocabulary Software

This is not a very sophisticated question, but this seems an ideal
forum for getting an answer. For her sins (:-), my daughter is
studying Latin in high school. She is struggling a long and is doing
O.K. but her vocabulary is not the best. So my question is whether
anybody knows of software for almost any hardware platform that
will drill a beginning student on Latin vocabulary.

I am pursuing the question with our own Languages Department, but I
thought the more information the better.

Dudley Irish / dirish@math.utah.edu / Manager Computer Operations
Center for Scientific Computing, Dept of Mathematics, University of Utah

The views expressed in this message do not reflect the views of the
Dept of Mathematics, the University of Utah, or the State of Utah.

(6) --------------------------------------------------------------31----
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1991 13:49:21 -0500
From: Dennis Baron <baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: pc dictionary

_Time Magazine_ reviewed the Random House Webster's College
Dictionary in its June 24 issue, with predictable opinions,
ie, the reviewer is agin it. I'd appreciate receiving info
on any reviews you may come across of this new dictionary, or
even copies of the reviews. To this end, I provide my full
range of addresses:

debaron@uiuc.edu ____________ 217-333-2392
|:~~~~~~~~~~:| fax: 217-333-4321
Dennis Baron |: :|
Dept. of English |: db :|
Univ. of Illinois |: :|
608 S. Wright St. |:==========:|
608 S. Wright St. |:==========:|
Urbana IL 61801 \\ """""""" \
\\ """""""" \
~~~~~~~~~~~~