Using the TLG Workplace

Introduction

The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) is a research center at the University of California, Irvine. Founded in 1972 the TLG has already collected and digitized most literary texts written in Greek from Homer to the fall of Byzantium in A.D. 1453. Its goal is to create a comprehensive digital library of Greek literature from antiquity to the present era.

Since 1985, the TLG Digital Library has been disseminated in CD-ROM format. The most recent edition (TLG E) was released in February 2000 with 76 million words of text.  For more information, visit the home page of the TLG Project.

TLG Workplace is the software that allows for viewing and searching TLG.  For more information on the TLG Workplace, see the home page for Silver Mountain Software.

Opening TLG

To open TLG simply double click on the TLG Workplace icon on the desktop.  This will bring up the following screen.

Browsing or Reading a Text

If you are interested in reading a text from a particular work in the TLG , click on the OPEN: TLG button. A dialogue box will open up and present a list of all the TLG authors.

You can scroll through the list to find a specific author or you can type the first couple of characters in the author's name to scroll directly to that section of the author list. When you have found your author, simply double-click on the author’s name or click on the author's name and then click on the OK button. If your author has only one work, TLG Workplace will display the text of that work.

If your author has multiple works, a new dialogue box will appear listing the titles of the available texts.

To view a text, simply double-click on a title or click on the title and then on OK. If you would like to read more than one text side by side, follow the same procedure to open each text. Then, when all the text windows are piled on the screen, click on the Window menu at the top of the screen and choose Horizontal Tile or Vertical Tile, whichever you prefer. All the texts will neatly tile across the screen.

Greek Keyboard

The layout of the basic Greek keyboard is as follows:

Iota subscripts work as follows:

 

Note: the search matches the letters of a word and ignores all diacritical marks and iota subscripts, unless you type one of these in your search terms.

Searching Options

There are four basic options for searching TLG:  author, work, canon, and date.

Author: To search the entire works of an author, click on the button marked Author.  A window with a list of authors in TLG will open.  Highlight the name of the author whose works you wish to search and click on the OK button (or simply double-click on the author’s name).  A search window will open like the one below. Type in the word(s) you wish to search on and click on OK.

Work: To search a particular work by an author, click on the button marked Work.  A window with a list of authors in TLG will open.  Highlight the name of the author whose work you wish to search and click on the OK button.  A window with a list of works by that author will open.  Highlight the work you wish to search and click on OK (or double-click on the title).  The same search window as above will open.

Canon: TLG has each work of an author categorized in several ways: century, classification, epithet (genre), geographical epithet, and female authors.  To search by canon, click on the Canon button which will open the following screen:

Date:  To search by date, click on the button marked Date.  This will open the following screen:

Highlight the date or dates you wish to search and click on OK. (Note: the more centuries selected, the longer the search will take to execute.) The same search window will come up as before.

Searching Tips

Word Boundaries: TLG will automatically match words with any prefix and any suffix. For example, searching for lock will result in matches with any word with lock in it, including flock, locks, clocks, etc. This can lead to a large number of extraneous matches. To limit a search by specifying word boundaries, use the [>] and [<] symbols.  For example:

• lock< will find any word ending in lock and any beginning.  It will find flock but not clocks.
• >lock will find any word beginning with lock and any ending.  It will find locks but not flock or clocks. 
• >lock< will find only lock and no other word.  It will not find flock or clocks.

Viewing Search Results

Whenever you perform a search, TLG Workplace will present a list of the search results in a new widow, similar to the one below.

To go to any of the search "hits" listed, double click on a reference. This will bring up the Greek text as the following example shows:

Double-clicking on the passage will bring up a separate window with the full text of that work so you can read the passage in context. You can tile the search result window and the reference window, to see both at the same time, using the method outlined above in Browsing or Reading a Text.

Copying, Saving, and Printing Search Results

Copying and Saving Search Results: To copy the text go to File, Save Results as RTF File.  This will save the references and texts from all results of your search as a Word file. Save to either your USB flash drive or floppy, or you may save to the desktop. Files saved to the desktop can then later be saved to a USB flash drive or floppy, or you may email the file as an attachment.  IMPORTANT NOTE: To view the Greek characters in the document on your computer, you will need to have the SGkClassic font saved to your C:\Windows\Fonts folder. If you do not have this font, a copy is on the Desktop for copying to your drive or floppy, or emailing to yourself, to be pasted into your Fonts folder.

Printing Search Results: Print jobs from the TLG computer will be sent to the OPAC print station by the Reference Desk.  To print there you may use your copy card or cash.  If you do not have a copy card, you can purchase one from the Circulation Desk.  If you are not sure how to use the print station, ask for assistance at the Reference Desk.

Exiting TLG

To exit TLG simply click on the “EXIT” button at the top right of the TLG Workplace window.