Help

The following help file gives guidance to users of the Greek Manuscripts Discovery system. For convenience it is divided into the relevant pages which constitute the system.

General

At the top of each page is a banner containing the following elements.

British Library Logo – clicking on this will take you to the main BL website.
Search the British Library Website – clicking on this will take you to the main BL website.
Quick Search – entering one or more keywords here and clicking on the adjacent GO button or pressing the Enter key will return a list of manuscripts whose metadata contains one or more of the specified words.
Home – clicking here will return you to the Home page from any other page within the site.
About – clicking here will take you to the About page which gives general project information.
Browse – clicking here will take you to the Browse page which offers you the ability to browse the available metadata by manuscript number, manuscript title, author name or scribe name.
Search – clicking here will take you to the advanced search feature which enables you to search the metadata using more precise parameters than the simple keyword search.

Home Page

The Home page offers a slightly more extended search facility over the Quick Search feature at the top of the page. Using the search panel at the bottom of the Home page, the user can search for relevant manuscripts based not only upon keywords, but also via manuscript references and a date range. The date range slider control enables the user to restrict or expand the scope within a start and end date. To control the scope, the user can use the left (lower) and right (upper) sliders to change the start and end years within the central text fields. Alternatively, for greater control, the user can type the exact start and end years directly into the text fields. Once the user has entered the desired search parameters, the Search button should be clicked or the Enter key pressed to produce the list of matching manuscripts.

British Library staff have compiled a list of manuscripts as highlights of the collection. A random selection of these manuscripts is shown to the right of the Home page under the Highlights column. You may view any of these manuscripts by clicking on the corresponding image or caption. Please note that a different set of highlights will be shown each time the Home page is displayed.

About Page

The About page shows information relating to the Greek Manuscripts project. Like the Home page, there is a Highlights column to the right. However, on the About page this shows the complete set of highlighted manuscripts, as opposed to the random selection displayed on the Home page.

Browse Page

The Browse page offers the user the ability to browse the manuscripts according to different indices of the metadata. These indices are the manuscript reference, title, author and scribe. Each is represented by the corresponding tab at the top of the page. To view a specific index, please click on the appropriate tab.

Manuscript Tab

The manuscript tab lists all the manuscripts in ascending reference order by default. However, you may re-order the list in descending order simply by selecting ‘Descending’ in the drop down field to the top right. A total of all the manuscripts on the system is displayed in the top left corner.

For each manuscript the reference, date range and title are displayed. If you click on the reference the full manuscript details will be displayed. By clicking on the spyglass icon next to the reference, the image viewer will be displayed showing all the images for the corresponding manuscript.

At the bottom of the tab, you will see the list navigation control, an example of which is shown below.

<< Previous 1 2 3 4 … Next >>

Clicking on each section has the following result.

<<	Display first page in list.
Previous	Display previous page in list.
1 2 3 4	Display corresponding page number in list.
...	Display further page numbers in list.
Next	Display next page in list.
>>	Display last page in list.

Author Tab

The Author tab lists all authors whose names start with the initial letter selected via the tabs running down the left hand side. By clicking on a different tab, it is possible to select a different initial letter, whereupon the list of authors will automatically be updated to reflect this.

The authors are displayed in ascending alphabetical order by default. However, you may re-order the list in descending order simply by selecting ‘Descending’ in the drop down field to the top right. A total of all the texts by the authors with the specified initial letter is displayed in the top left corner.

For each author the total texts attributed to them is displayed in brackets after the name. If you click on the title the full details of the corresponding manuscript will be displayed. By clicking on the spyglass icon next to the title, the image viewer will be displayed showing all the images for the corresponding text.

If there are more authors than will fit on to the web page, then you will see the list navigation control at the bottom of the tab. For more information, please see the manuscript tab section.

Scribe Tab

The Scribe tab lists all scribes whose names start with the initial letter selected via the tabs running down the left hand side. By clicking on a different tab, it is possible to select a different initial letter, whereupon the list of scribes will automatically be updated to reflect this.

The scribes are displayed in ascending alphabetical order by default. However, you may re-order the list in descending order simply by selecting ‘Descending’ in the drop down field to the top right. A total of all the manuscripts by the scribes with the specified initial letter is displayed in the top left corner.

The scribe’s name is displayed first in English and then in Greek. The total number of manuscripts attributed to them is displayed in brackets after the name. For each related manuscript, the reference, date and title are displayed. If you click on the reference, the full details of the corresponding manuscript will be displayed. By clicking on the spyglass icon next to the reference, the image viewer will be displayed showing all the images for the corresponding manuscript.

If there are more scribes than will fit on to the web page, then you will see the list navigation control at the bottom of the tab. For more information, please see the manuscript tab section.

Title Tab

The Title tab lists all text titles starting with the initial letter selected via the tabs running down the left hand side. By clicking on a different tab, it is possible to select a different initial letter, whereupon the list of titles will automatically be updated to reflect this.

The titles are displayed in ascending alphabetical order by default. However, you may re-order the list in descending order simply by selecting ‘Descending’ in the drop down field to the top right. A total of all the titles with the specified initial letter is displayed in the top left corner.

Since titles are either in Latin or Greek script, the alphabetic tabs can be displayed in either script to enable all titles to be browsed. To switch between the two scripts on the alphabetic tabs, select the appropriate value in the drop down field above them.

For each title, the reference and text title are displayed. If you click on the reference, the full details of the corresponding manuscript will be displayed. By clicking on the spyglass icon next to the reference, the image viewer will be displayed showing all the images for the corresponding text.

If there are more titles than will fit on to the web page, then you will see the list navigation control at the bottom of the tab. For more information, please see the manuscript tab section.

Search Page

The Search page enables you to search the metadata using more precise parameters than the simple keyword search. Users can specify values to match in each of the following fields.

Manuscript reference – enter either the full manuscript reference or the short numeric form.
Keyword – enter one or more keywords to match on any of the metadata fields.
Date range – restrict or expand the scope of your search by using the two slider controls.
Title – enter any keywords to be matched against the manuscript or text title.
Author/Scribe – enter any keywords to match against the names of the authors and scribes.
Provenance/Acquisition – enter any keywords to match against both the provenance (ownership) and acquisition fields.
Bibliography – enter any keywords to match against the bibliography (publication notes) field.

Once you have entered all the relevant search parameters, you can either click on the Search button or press the Enter key, whereupon a list of matching manuscripts will be displayed.

Brief Results Page

The Brief Results page shows all the matching manuscripts from the previous search. The results are always shown at the manuscript level. For each matching manuscript, the reference, title, date range, authors and thumbnail of the first page are shown. If you click on either the thumbnail or the reference, the corresponding full manuscript page will be displayed.

The following features on the Brief Results page should be noted.

At the top of the page, a list of the search parameters you entered and the number of results displayed are shown in the line which starts with ‘You searched for…’.
You can change the number of results listed per page using the values listed after the caption ‘Results per page:’.
You can change the order in which the results are displayed by selecting one of the fields listed after the caption ‘Sort by:’.
The current search parameters can be amended by clicking on the ‘Refine Search’ link to return to the original search screen with the previous values still in place. This works for all search types except Quick Search, as it is always present on the Brief Results page and will retain the original search parameters by default.
The Print link enables the user to print the current Brief Results page to the nominated printer. Please note that each individual page of results must be printed separately.
If there are more matches than will fit on to the web page, then you will see the list navigation control at both the top and bottom of the tab. For more information, please see the manuscript tab section.

Full Manuscript Page

The Full Manuscript page shows all the metadata for the selected manuscript, including all its associated texts. The key metadata is shown at the top of the page: reference, date range and content. A summary of the texts is then shown, followed by the remaining data: physical characteristics, ownership and bibliography.

For each text within the manuscript its reference, title and thumbnail of the first page are displayed. By clicking on the thumbnail you can open the Image Viewer at the first page of the relevant text. Please note that you will be viewing the images in the logical order in which the scribe wanted them to be read, rather than the physical order in which the folios were bound, the two not necessarily being the same.

Any subtext (i.e. a text within another text) is offset from its parent text above to give a clear indication of its relationship. However, this only occurs for the first level of subtexts. Deeper levels of subtext are displayed in line with their parents.

The following features on the Full Manuscript page should be noted.

At the top of the page, you can click on one of the links following the ‘View’ caption to study images of the associated manuscript in different contexts. If you click on the ‘bindings’ link you can view the front cover, back cover and spine of the manuscript. If you click on the ‘physical order’ link you can view all the manuscript images in the physical order in which they were bound, except for the flysheets and bindings which will be located at the end.
If you wish to navigate through the metadata of each individual manuscript listed in the search results without returning to the Brief Results page to select the next one, you can click on the ‘next MS’ and ‘last MS’ links to cause the system to display the next and previous manuscript respectively. However, if you still wish to return to the search results, you can click on the ‘Return to results’ link.
To bookmark the page for future reference, click on the ‘Show link URL’. This will reveal a hidden field with the full URL of the current page, which you can then use to create a new bookmark. Please note that this URL is different from that displayed in the main browser address field, and it should be used for accurate bookmarking of the current page.