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Finding Topically Indexed Books

Libronix consists of two primary types of e-books: versified and topically indexed. Versified books are organized according to Bible chapters and verses. Bibles and commentaries are examples of versified books. Type a Bible reference in their Current Reference Box to navigate through them. Topically indexed books are organized by topic. Dictionaries and lexicons are primary examples. Type a word like Paul or Rome in their Current Reference Box to move through them. Other books however may possess topics. It's very helpful to know if an e-book has been tagged with topics because if it has it can be searched with the Topic Bowser, which is more effective than a simple word search. To discover if a book possesses topics, open the resource and click the Active Index icon on its toolbar. If Topics is in the list, the book contains topics. Some books that you may not realize contain topics include the Early Church Fathers, Max Lucado's books, Logos Deluxe Map Set, and Daily Study Bible Series. Try searching any of them with the Topic Browser.

Posted by on August 30, 2006 6:00 AM |

Comments

Thanks for the tip. This brings up an idea that I am surprised hasn't been added to the Libronix system (so far as I can tell).

I have been searching in vain for an efficient way to topically index the bible by selection, verse, or article - especially by selection.

To be able to search the bible by individually-assigned topics and immediately pull up all of the passages that seem relevant to each (topic) would be a powerful tool. It would be in essence function like a kind of personalized "Treasury of Scriptural Quotations".

Say for example, a question came up on life after death. If I could pull up all of the verses that I have found relevant to questions on life after death from a biblical perspective, it could provide an instant way to ground my answer in these specific verse selections by pulling them all up and reading them.

To work, one would need to create a "controlled vocabulary list" (much like stock photography uses to create searchable keywords to find photos). Then, as one reads through the bible, they would “flag” or topically index selections of biblical passages by selecting the range and right clicking to a “topic” list and choosing the desired “keyword”.

I have experimented with existing functionality but haven’t yet found a way to do this. Creating an entirely new Libronix DLS book of the bible and coding the topics seems impractical, if it is even possible or allowed. Perhaps there are other workarounds or solutions with existing functionality or scripts?

Any thoughts? Should this go in a “requested features” list?
Thanks
Rodney Mowrey

Posted by: Rodney Mowrey | December 4, 2007 1:03 PM

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