How to Use the Database
Table of Contents
I. General Information
I.1. Compatibility
The database is compatible with all major browsers. For best performance, we recommend using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. Currently, the website is not optimized for mobile devices.
I.2. Record Types
The database contains records for “Books”, “People” (authors, editors, commentators, translators, etc.), and “Places”. Each record type has a specific icon associated with it, which is displayed on the left-hand side of the record list or in the upper right-hand corner of the pop-up windows. When the information under “Places of Publication” and “Year of Print” is displayed in square brackets, this indicates that the title page of a particular book does not show where or when a particular book was printed, but that the place or date of publication has been assumed. The brackets also have a “question mark” symbol, which displays a balloon reading “this place and/or date cannot be ascertained and is only provision” when the cursor is placed on it. For books that can only be assigned to a specific geographical area, this is noted accordingly (e.g., “Germany”, “Russia”, “Poland or Russia” etc.). For books where this information is not known and cannot be guessed at, the bibliographic entry will state that the place or year is “unspecified”.
I.3. Map
The map intentionally avoids defining boundaries. Since it covers a period of nearly four centuries in which the political circumstances were constantly changing, it would have been virtually impossible to develop a feature that would allow the user to create historically accurate maps for each search result. Moreover, one of the goals of the database is to illustrate how musar books were printed over time and how they “traveled”.
I.4. Spellings and Transliterations
Early Modern Musar in Print is a bilingual database and allows users to run searches in both English and Hebrew. The search results are always displayed in both languages. The Hebrew spellings of titles and names follow those found on the title pages of the books. Only the spelling of the places of printing has been standardized to allow for optimal search results. This follows modern Hebrew conventions. The transliterations of Hebrew terms follow the recommendations set out by the Encyclopedia Judaica, the Yiddish transliterations follow the rules common in Anglo-Saxon scholarship, and the transliterations of Ladino titles are adapted to Castilian orthography. The entries use special characters for the letter “ḥet”. These can be replaced with a simple “h” when searching.
II. Browsing the Data
To access the search engine, click on the “Browse the Database” button in the menu bar at the top of the page. On the “Browse the Database” page, you will see the print locations (in both English and Hebrew) in alphabetical order in the left-hand column and a map in the right-hand column of the page with the coordinates of each location marked with red triangles. If you place the cursor on the left-hand column, you can scroll down the list of “Place” entries. You can change the page view at any time either by hiding the map or by enlarging the “List of Records” column. To do this, click on the “Close Map” or “Maximize Map” button in the menu that you will find above the map. If you want to return from the full view of the “List of Records” to a split view, click on the “Show Map” button.
II.1. Unspecified Searches
The database allows you to search the data without specifying certain parameters for a query. If you wish to do so, you have the option of running either a “List of Records” or a “Map” search.
II.1.1. Running a “List of Records” Search
You can click on any of the “Place” records on the left, which will take you to a pop-up window showing a list of all the books printed in that city or region. You can also click on a specific book entry in the pop-up window, which will take you to a new window with additional bibliographic data. To return, click the arrow in the upper left-hand corner of the window.
II.1.2. Running a “Map” Search
Alternatively, you can click on one of the red triangles on the map. If you place the cursor on a particular triangle, the print location will be shown on the display. At the same time, a list with the corresponding record will be created in the left-hand column.
If you click on one of the triangles, a pop-up window will open showing the record for the corresponding location. Clicking on the record will take you to the list of all the books printed in that city or region.
To find additional bibliographic information about the books, click on the corresponding entry.
The “Additional Biographical Data” tab contains an overview of the “Author”, “Title”, “Year of Print”, “Language”, and “Place of Publication” of a specific book. In some cases, it also includes additional information in the “Remarks” section. You can click on any of the details that are displayed in light blue. For example, clicking on the author’s name will display all the books written by, attributed to, or related to that person.
II.2. Specified Searches
The database also allows you to specify the exact parameters for your search. A search for specific information – such as a particular person, book title, year or period of publication, or place of publication – will quickly and easily generate results.
II.2.1. Using the Search Bar
The default setting of the search function is configured to search “All Fields.” Using the drop-down menu, you can limit the search parameters to “Book Titles”, “Authors”, or “Places”. You can also specify whether you want to search for “all words”, “any word”, an “exact phrase”, or an entry that “contains that phrase”.
When searching in “Book Titles”, an additional “Printed by/before year” option will be activated. You can specify a time span either by entering the years in the corresponding search fields or by moving the pointers at each end of the time bar. Click and hold one of the pointers and move it to the desired position. If you leave the search field empty, the database will generate a list of all the books printed in the selected time span.
The search results are displayed in the left-hand “List of Records” column. The corresponding “Places of Print” are displayed on the map on the right-hand side. You can either click on any of the records or on the triangles on the map, which will redirect you to a new tab with additional information. For further details, please see also sections II.1.1. (Running a “List of Records” Search) and II.1.2. (Running a “Map” Search) above.
II.2.2. Using the Percent Sign (%) and the Underscore (_) in Searches
If you are unsure of the exact spelling of a particular search term, you can use the percent sign (%) to replace zero or more characters, or the underscore character (_) to replace a single character. For example: A search for “Ham%” will return all results starting with “Ham” (such as “Hamburg”; “Hamburger, Samson”; or “Ḥamudei dani'el”). A search for “%or” will return all results ending in “or” (such as “Menorat ha-ma’or”; “Torah Or”; or “Oraḥ mishor”). A search for “A_raham” will return all results for the spellings “Abraham” and “Avraham.”
III. Color Coding
The color coding used in the Early Modern Musar in Print Database is a unique feature that combines two functions at once. Firstly, it visualizes the printing dates in a gradient, which enables users to easily trace the print history of an individual work or the works attributed to a particular person. The earliest prints are displayed in red and the latest in yellow. Prints with no specified date are displayed in green. Secondly, the size of the triangles indicates how often a work was printed in a single place. The larger the triangle, the more prints are found in the respective location. This means that a triangle can consist of several colors, which shows that a work was printed several times in one place and also at different times.
Each search result generates a map with color codes. If you want to deactivate this function, press the “Toggle Color Coding” bar at the upper right-hand edge of the map.