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Bits, bytes and the Byzantinist: databases reviewed

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Brenda Hampton
Brenda Hampton*
Affiliation:
The Queen’s University of Belfast
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Extract

A computer is a machine which can receive, store, manipulate and yield up information. The use of computers can be traced back to C.1812 when Charles Babbage conceived his first main idea for automatic computation, but it is clear that development has been rapid and widespread especially in the last 20 years. Computers were originally developed for performing numerical calculations. However, although most forms of information can be translated into numbers, it is important to realise that computing today is no longer confined to numerical work. One of the most interesting and significant developments of the use of computers to research and teaching in the humanities is the growing body of material which has been put into machine-readable form. For example, censuses, parish registers, wills and accounts have been input to a computer, increasingly in the form of a structured database.

Type
Critical Study
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 13 , 1989 , pp. 306 - 316
Copyright
Copyright ©The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1989

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References

1. For example, from a growing list of publications, see: Humanities Communication Newsletter. (Leicester, 1983-); Computing and History Today. AHC Newsletter. (Edinburgh, 1987-).

2. See for sorting and analysis Alan Mayne, Database Management Systems: A Technical Review. (Washington, 1981); Inmon, William H., Effective Database Design (Prentice-Hall Inc., 1981)Google Scholar; Sundgren, Bo, Theory of Database Design (New York, 1975).Google Scholar

3. E.g. Database for Early Modern Irish History (funded by the British Academy and directed by Mary O’Dowd from the Queen’s University of Belfast).

4. See Jeffreys, E. (for Macintosh), ‘Word Processing in Greek’, Byzantine Studies in Australia. Newsletter (Sydney 1987) 14.Google Scholar

5. Ashton Tate.

6. Kuma Computers.

7. Compsoft.

8. Campbell Systems.

9. Relational Technology Inc. 1987.

10. On an Opus PC IV supplied to Byzantine Studies as part of the Q.U.B. Aeneas project for mass student computer literacy.

11. ed. Gautier, P., ‘Le typikon de la Théotokos Évergétis’, REB 40 (1982) 15–95 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Le typikon de la Théotokos Kécharitomênè’, REB 43 (1985) 5–16; idem, ‘Le typikon du sébaste Grégoire Pakourianos’, REB 42 (1984) 5–145; idem, ‘Le typikon du Christ Sauveur Pantokrator’, REB 32 (1974) 1–45. Translations and commentaries of all Byzantine monastic typika will shortly be published, eds. J. Thorns and G. Constable, by Dumbarton Oaks; see also Galatariotou, C., ‘Byzantine Ktetorika Typika: A Comparative Study’, REB 45 (1987) 77–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. See Hampton, B., An Investigation and Implementation of a Database Package for Byzantine Prosopography (Diss, Belfast 1988)Google Scholar. I wish to express my thanks to Mr. R.H. Jordan of Methodist College, Belfast for his invaluable guidance.

13. Martindale, J.R. et al., The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, I & II (Cambridge 1971 and 1980).Google Scholar

14. Trapp, E. et al., Proposopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit (Vienna 1976-)Google Scholar; on the current state of play on Byzantine prosopography in general, see Nicol, D.M., ‘The Prosopography of the Byzantine Aristocracy’, in The Byzantine Aristocracy, IX-XIII Centuries, ed. Angold, M. (BAR, International Series 221, Oxford 1983) 79–91.Google Scholar

15. Date, C.J., An Introduction to Database Systems (London 1981).Google Scholar

16. Dr. D. Rathbone of King’s College, London is director of a project to set up a prosopography on Ptolemaic Egypt using a text retrieval system called STATUS.