Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Deinde's Biblical Studies Web Search

Over in the comment section of my post on More on the Future for Online Textbooks, Bob MacDonald helpfully asks about the question of searching sites like the NT Gateway. The question reminded me of the excellent resource provided by Danny Zacharias over on Deinde. From this search box, you can search for Biblical Resources on the web that are indexed by sites like mine, Chris Heard's iTanakh and so on. It's a hugely useful resource, and one that is definitely worth more mentions than it usually gets:

Biblical Studies Web Search

9 comments:

Danny Zacharias said...

Thanks for the mention Mark. Thought I'd mention too that I make the code available for the searchbox, so people can use it wherever they want.

Since you mentioned my search, there is something I have been mulling over in my head and thought I'd ask your opinion.

There is a blurring of the lines between web content and printed content because so much print content is online (google books, archive.org). iTanakh has listed book reviews from RBL for awhile, and NTGateway has been adding links to google books, archive.org, and dissertations at a rapid rate.

I say all of this because I have wondered if I should keep the deinde search strictly a web content search and exclude hits from archive, google books, etc., or should I leave it all in there.

Any thoughts?

Mark Goodacre said...

Great question, Danny. I'd say: the more the better, especially given the blurring of the lines you mention.

While we are chatting, have you recently updated the blogroll that informs the Biblioblogs search? I ran a check and it is not picking up results from the NT Blog, for example. I realize that NT Wrong set up a Biblioblog search, but he's stopped updating that, so the onus might be back on you again.

Thanks for the great work you do -- it's hugely appreciated.

Danny Zacharias said...

Ah, I didn't catch that change. I still had http://www.ntgateway.com/blog/ indexed. I've changed it to http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/ and should be reflected shortly.

I have not figured out a nice automated way to add sites to the searches (unlike my bookmarks site, which is much easier to maintain) so the biblioblogs search is manually updated and sometimes I miss or just forget.

I'm inclined to agree with you about leaving the search as is. (The biblioblogs search code is also available for anyone to use fyi)

Mark Goodacre said...

Thanks, Danny. That's great (re NT Blog). Yes, imagine that that is more difficult to monitor with being manual.

On the search, I was actually trying to suggest the more, the better, i.e. the more quality resources indexed, the better.

Danny Zacharias said...

Yep I understood and I agree. That's how the search is now, and I'll leave it like that

Mark Goodacre said...

Oh, I see! Thanks, yes.

Anonymous said...

@ Danny the search seems also to have missed my having (to, thanks to Blogger :( moved Sansblogue to http://bigbible.org/sansblogue/ Which leads me to wonder if the new biblioblog top fifty might be a better list to use?

@ Mark have you/will you put a Deinde Bilical Studies search box on NT Gateway?

Danny Zacharias said...

Your in now! Sorry about that

Mark Goodacre said...

Definitely, Tim.