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Types of reference sources

The Scripta Bulgarica digital portal is planned to include the following types of reference sources: a Thesaurus of terms, Articles about works, Source texts (written documents), Authoritative lists of Byzantine authors and Bibliography.

A). Thesaurus of terms

The Thesaurus is a reference source covering the categories listed above: hagiography, hymnography, rhetoric, textology, paleography and codicology, linguistics, macro-genres, and micro-genres. The working team adopted the following structure of an article:

1) header (term);

2) a short definition after the header. It is divided into three: term content, including the entire mass of meanings of the item designated by the term; term meaning – a small part of its content sufficient to identify it; term history – if it has changed its meaning  this is noted separately.

3) identical terms in eight languages – Old Bulgarian, Byzantine Greek, Latin, Russian, Serbian, English, German (or French); it is desirable to quote the author who has used it after the term in each language (with reference to bibliographical information);

4) bibliography. This information links the individual headers with references about the usage of the terms, the articles about works, source texts and authority files.

5) keywords, similar terms.

If synonyms exist (or different derivatives of a term) in contemporary academic literature, these are cited additionally. Where the term is lacking in Old Bulgarian, but it is a scientific term created as a consequence of research tradition, then this is mentioned in particular. The work on the complementing of these terms is divided into two stages: in the first stage, this information is amassed as a simple, unsctructured list. The accumulation of these will lead to their hierarchisation and inclusion in ontological schemes.

B) Articles about works.

These are articles representing meta-data relevant to Old Bulgarian texts included in the digital library. They include: the title of the work, a short description of its origins, source data about it (copies); its association with a certain genre or genre form; its significance for the history of Old Bulgarian literature. The titles of the work in Old Bulgarian and the modern European languages are also given. The bibliographic information includes: publications, translation in Modern Bulgarian (if any) and literature. The keywords indicate relations (genres and genre forms) relevant to the work. The scientific titles are compiled by the principle of ontologies, i.e. first the general title is entered, followed by the specific one, e.g. Miracles of St. Nicholas of Myra, Miracle about the carpet; or Series of stories about the Holy Tree. Story about the third tree. The principles of the titles are followed and they are compared to those included in the project Repertory of Old Bulgarian Literature, Institute for Literature, BAS.

C) Source texts transcribed from the mansucripts in UNICODE.

The texts are transcribed in machine-readable format that allows easy export of Old Bulgarian texts in the Web and their use for digital processing.

D) Authority files about Byzantine authors.

The authority files provide related information about the texts and their authors. The system of authority files about authors is well-known in library practice and the same formats are used in the methodology of their creation. The files include a title (name of author in Modern Bulgarian, Old Bulgarian, Greek, Latin, English and German, e.g. Ефрем Сирин, Ефрем Сириец (Mār Aprêm Sûryāyâ) (c. 306–373); Old Bulgarian: Ефремь (бл҃жен'наго Ефрема, с҃тго о҃ца нашег Ефрема); Greek: Ἐφραίμ ὁ Σῦρος; Latin Ephraem Syrus; EnglishEphrem the Syrian; German Ephräm der Syrer); a short review of the biographical data about him and about his works, particularly focused on those translated in Old Bulgarian; bibliography.