Data Limitations

As the catalog has been a work in progress with changing goals, the current data collection available through this iteration of the catalog has a number of limitations in terms of varying levels of granularity and completeness.  This includes the following issues:

Missing or Incomplete Work/Edition Data

  • As of August 2015, the majority of works by classical authors within the Perseus Digital Library have been cataloged with a handful of exceptions.
  • There are some large component volumes (containing many individual works-both fragmentary and extant) that have only been partially cataloged due to time restrictions (such as Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Volume 4)
  • A large number of MODS records created early in the cataloging process (2006-2007)  may have less data than later records. For instance, there may be no links to online versions since none were available at the time the edition was cataloged.  There are far fewer links to the HathiTrust than is preferred at this stage of the work.
  • Series level data was not included in many of the MODS records that were downloaded and was not always added at the time of catalog record enhancement.
  • Page level linking has relied heavily on Google Books. The Open Content Alliance and HathiTrust did not yet support page level linking at the time many volumes were initially cataloged.

Authority Records Limitations

  • There are still many authors within the Perseus catalog data that have not had authority records created and thus do not have online author pages within the catalog.
  • A number of early catalog records for fragmentary or smaller authors may not have links to their online authority records since the works were cataloged before the dramatic expansion of the VIAF in the last few years.
  • A number of authority records have not been enhanced (e.g. addition of variant names, links to online reference sources) and have only limited data.

Other Issues

  • A number of authors/works either did not have standard identifiers in the classical work canons (PHI, TLG, Stoa) used in the creation of this catalog and have also not yet had identifiers created for them and so thus may not be findable within the catalog. This issue is discussed further in our FAQ.
  • The current catalog data does yet not fully support linked data standards and principles, a issue discussed further by our roadmap.

 

 

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