When computers first came into use in educational establishments, it seemed that the huge amount of data which could be stored on one CD-ROM would offer a way of installing a whole reference book, or even a library, onto one system. In fact, over the last 10 years, the emphasis has gradually shifted away from installed software towards an increasing use of the Internet, so this area is becoming of lesser importance. However, teachers should be aware that there are some excellent products available which can be installed on C: drives or networks, and that their usage can support different types of research for teachers and students alike.

Perseus

The real trailblazer and most important contender in this field is Platform Independent Perseus. This evolved from its first, early incarnation into a set of four cross-platform CDs, available from its publisher, Yale University Press. Perseus can be bought in concise version also, though this is not especially recommended, as the full set of CDs offers you far more than the cut-down version. Platform Independent Perseus is a huge research database of texts, maps and photographs, containing 3.4 million words of ancient Greek, parsing tools and lexicon and 24,000 images of the Greek world. Many of its contents are available on line, but the CD installation offers you reliability and speed. A short review of the software is included in Chapter 4 of this manual, where you can gain more information about what is included and how you can benefit from it. Information about ordering the software can be found on the Yale University Press website, http://www.yalebooks.co.uk/yale/default.asp. Platform Independent Perseus is a difficult program to master, so you should allocate time to it, to explore and experiment.

Oxford Classical Dictionary

Another interesting English language title is the Oxford Classical Dictionary, third edition, which was recently made available on CD-ROM, originally published by Oxford University Press. It contains all the texts of the original dictionary in book form but also has links between different reference points along the way. So an article on Tiberius may well have a reference in it to Sejanus, which can be clicked on and then visited. This makes it especially easy to cross-reference and extend your research. In addition, text can be highlighted, copied and then pasted into a word-processed document, so you can easily create handouts for students or typed notes for your own research. It is an excellent resource, accessible to teachers and students alike. Details of how to find this CD-ROM can be found at http://www.nlx.com/titles/titlocd.htm.

Language dictionaries are available in different countries, and if you consult this website, you will find a list of specific utilities in your country of interest. Our attention has in particular been drawn to dictionaries of Latin - Italian and Latin - French, which feature elsewhere in this manual.

Thesaurus Linguae Graecae

The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) is the name given to a huge collection of Greek texts on CD-ROM. The most recent edition (TLG E) was released in February 2000 with 76 million words of text. TLG is in fact also the name of a research centre at the University of California, Irvine, founded in 1972, which has collected and digitised most literary texts written in Greek from Homer to the fall of Byzantium in AD 1453. Its goal is to create a comprehensive digital library of Greek literature from antiquity to the present era. Details can be found at http://www.tlg.uci.edu/. In April 2001, TLG became available online to subscribing institutions and recently to individuals.

A collection of Latin texts from Packard Humanities Institute (PHI) 

‘Latin authors and Bible versions', a similar collection of Latin texts, from the beginnings of Latin literature to 200 AD, plus Justinian's Digest, Servius' Commentaries on Virgil, Porphyry's Commentary on Horace, and several versions of the Bible is available only on CD-ROM - no online version - at Packard Humanities Institute,  (300 Second Street, Suite 201, Los Altos, CA 94022, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it tel: +1 (650) 948-0150; fax: +1 (650) 948-4135). This collection is widely referred to as PHI.

TLG and PHI are searched by external software. This can be purchased but there are also good open source software options which can do it for free. 

TLG and PHI are not widely used in secondary schools, since they are aimed at university level users. However, they are a wonderful tool for teachers, especially to get genuine Latin and Greek phrases or sentences related to a specific morphological or syntactic or lexical point.

Collections of images

In addition to the high level programs described above, research can also be done using collections of images, which can be bought by institutions for use by their teachers or students, to support projects, presentations or websites. Five of these are offered by J-PROGS software.

First Steps: Buy some software and install it on your computer! Then experiment with it and use it in your work as frequently as seems appropriate. Read the review of Platform Independent Perseus which appears in Chapter 4 of this manual.

More Ideas: Consider using the software to help generate handout materials. Copy and paste from the texts into your own documents, and see if you can do this with texts as well as pictures. Make sure you keep issues of copyright in mind (as detailed in Chapter 1 of this manual). Consider attending a course in how to use the software described. Consider how your students can exploit the software and how you need to acquaint them with its usage.