Words, Words Everywhere and Every One a Link!

Libronix DLS, our digital library system, is based in no small part on linkage between texts. Today I want to introduce you to the quiet, unobtrusive links you may have overlooked.

You should care about this topic because links are one of the key features that make a digital library more than a pile of texts on your hard drive…and that sets Logos Bible Software apart from the competition.

Every user is familiar with the obvious links that appear in Logos resources: references to Bible verses, Josephus or Word Biblical Commentary; links to footnotes; or cross-links between articles in an encyclopedia.

These links are obvious because of their color. “Click me,” they shout. They are elevevated to a special status in the digital library because the author of the book gave them special status: “Here’s a pointer to the verse I’m discussing…it’s Genesis 3:1.” Blue text.

What many users miss out on—and it’s a shame, really, because there’s a great deal of utility here—is that every word of every Logos resource is a potential link to something.

Let me say it again…every word’s a link!

These are the shy and retiring links that don’t draw attention to themselves…but they may turn out to be at least as useful as their boisterous brethren.

These links are not visually distinguished in any way; they are just all the other words in a resource, set in normal black text. But double-click on one of these guys and cool stuff happens…even better, you get to control what cool stuff happens!

When you double-click on a word in a resource, the Libronix DLS knows what language the word is and seeks to open a resource that will tell you something useful about that word.

You can try this right now…open up a Bible to Genesis 3:1 and double-click the word serpent. What happens on your machine?

On my machine, the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible opens to a fascinating article on serpents in the mythology and iconology of the Ancient Near East, its appearances in the Hebrew Bible, and in later writings.

Depending on how you have configured your machine and which books you own, you might see an equally fascinating article in A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature discussing the serpent in Beowulf, Genesis B, Canterbury Tales and so on. Or maybe you’ll see the entry for serpent in Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, or The New Bible Dictionary.

If what you see isn’t as cool as you would like it to be, check out the tutorial article on English KeyLinking at Logos.com, which provides a strategy for configuring your preferences in this area. I think you’ll find it well worth the ten minutes it takes to read the article and customize for your own particular interests.

Proceed to Episode II >>