Thursday, January 19, 2017

ISEGRIM search form

ISEGRIM is a database of 60,000 Greek coins of Asia Minor developed by Otfried v. Vacano at the University in Düsseldorf. There are no pictures. Unlike other search sites, instead of filling out forms the user was to write "queries" using a special syntax similar to Lucene. Although powerful, it has been difficult for computer novices to use.

I created a proof-of-concept for searching ISEGRIM using forms. My experimental site is at http://isegrim.mybluemix.net. If you already know ISEGRIM this site still gives one advantage because it alters search responses to the BMC Greek catalogs to be hyperlinks. So if you are in the United States you can just click to go to the BMC description (then search for the plate, if any).

I sent an email to the ISEGRIM contact address but got no response. It is possible they will ask me to take it down. Or maybe they will let me contribute it to their site.

This is a proof of concept. Let me know if it helps.