A Rhetorical Index in Richard Bernard's Thesaurus Biblicus

Bernard, Richard. Thesaurus Biblicus, Seu Promptuarium Sacrum: Whereunto are Added all the Marginall Readings, with the Words of the Text, and Many Words in the Text Expounded by the Text, all Alphabetically Set Downe Throughout the Bible: In the End is Annexed an Abstract of the Principal Mattters [Sic] in the Holy Scripture. London: Imprinted by Felix Kingston, and are to be sold at his house in Pater-Noster-Row, at the Signe of the Gilded Cock, 1644.

This is a strange beast, defying easy generic categorization.  It certainly is not a concordance, as Bernard himself makes clear in his preface to the reader (for a proper concordance, he refers to the reader to either Cotton's or Newman's: these seem to be the standards ones).  And yet it looks a lot like other concordances of the period (and the DNB entry on Bernard calls it a concordance).  

Compare:

Bernard's Thesaurus Biblicus (not a concordance)

... with ...

Samuel Newman's A Concordance to the Holy Scriptures (1658)

And the Thesaurus and the Concordance share a similar indexical function: identifying common content and pointing to various locations where it and be found.  The main difference between the Thesaurus and a concordance is that a concordance correlates content words with their various occurrences in the Bible (as in Cotton and Newman), whereas the Thesaurus organizes its material according to subject words, which includes both occurrences of the word itself in the biblical text and instances where the text exemplifies the subject. For example, under “Abase” Bernard includes verses that use the word (all of the one that Cotton's Concordance includes) and also verses that exemplify the idea without naming it. Bernard is also more selective in his headwords, including only words that he deems topically important. He also provides paraphrases of the subject term, along with instances of what appear to be Latin cognates. 

The title, calling it a holy storehouse, places this book in the tradition of aids to rhetorical invention (such as Cawdrey's Rich Storehouse of Similes): there is even, under the section heading "Simile," a section of similes arranged under alphabetical heads from A-Z. Editor John Conant, in his preface to the volume, picks up on this rhetorical function in his historical contextualization of the Thesaurus: "Chrysostome likens the holy scripture, to a treasury, to a fountaine, to an Apothecaries shop: Irome, to a table richly furnished with variety of delicates: Ephrem, to an armorie: Basil, to a looking glasse: Chrysostom againe, to a pleasant garden; and Cassian, to a fruitfull field" (sig. A3). Many of these metaphors were used in the Renaissance in discussions of poetics and rhetoric. For both Canant and Bernard, the Thesaurus is all about enabling the reader in the Biblical environment (A3-[A3v]). Much of Bernard's preface consists of instruction of the reader in how s/he can make use of the Thesaurus. 

A postscript on marginalia:

An interesting notion of the "marginal" as expressed in “The Diverse Marginall Readings with the Text.” It is interesting in that Bernard seems not to be referring to a physical margin. That is, he is not collecting readings found in marginalia. While the entry under "Accept thy sacrifice" does paraphrase a marginal gloss in the KJV for Psalm 20.3, in the case of “Abase” it does not. What he does provide for “Abase” is a paraphrase—“bring low”--, which is the kind of thing one might expect in a marginal gloss for Job 40.11. So, marginal now has a kind of metaphorical meaning: a gloss is a string of text that is removed from the object of focus, the centre of view, but related to it, and it is the kind of material one might very well relegate to the physical margin of a book. That said, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of difference between the kind of material (and its rationale) provided in the “The Diverse Marginall Readings with the Text” and that provided in the Thesaurus.

Deckled edges

n. deckle: "a contrivance in a paper-making machine to confine the pulp within the desired limits, and determine the size or width of the sheet" (OED).

adj. deckled edge: "the rough uncut edge of a sheet of paper, formed by the deckle" (OED).

Interesting article demonstrating how the culture of the book is becoming increasingly strange and inscrutable to those born-digital: "Deckle Detecting" in The Economist, 15July 2012.  http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/07/printed-books

The deckle edge was unavoidable until the 19th century, a byproduct of the papermaking process. Since it became unnecessary, the rough edge gradually turned into a status symbol. Advertisements for books in the late 1800s are rife with mentions of a "deckle edge" alongside the fine paper on which a title was printed. But even that aspect has begun to fade as modern book buyers do not know what to make of it.

If the deckled edge is an index of the diminishing symbolic power of the print, is there a corresponding feature of the digital artefact that bespeaks its social prestige, perhaps also a vestige of a bygone era?

Manicules working with pilcrows: a couple of curious examples

Another follow-up to the entry on "Manicules" by Bialkowski et al.  In this example from Eunuchus in a 1499 edition of Terence’s comedies ( sig. [H2v], at the start of Act 4 scene 3, not numbered in the text), the manicule is used in a curious way.  At the top of the page, the manicule is extended by a line that more precisely locates the beginning of the passage of interest in the commentary, which seems to correspond to a similar manicule pointing to the corresponding place in Terrence’s text.   A marginal note “absente nobis” in MS (highlighted by a pilcrow) further locates the point of interest.  

Further down the margin, the manicule is used together with a pilcrow in the text, again (evidently) to locate the beginning of the passage of interest, which interest is further indicated by the marginal note “Temulentus. a.” which identifies both the masculine and the feminine of the adjective for “intoxicated.”

Work cited:

Terence. Comoediae. [In urbe Argentia]: [Johann (Reinhard) Gruninger], 1499.      

Fisher inc 00134

Defining the Scholarly Edition: a reconsideration

It might be a good idea to step back (following on the previous post) and make a distinction between the scholarly edition and the critical edition.  We might define the former as any instantiation of a text that is produced according to some scholarly principles for use by scholars. Thus for some scholarly uses, the establishment of a text and analysis of its history and variant states might be of foremost importance, as is the case for many literary texts designed for use by professional scholars. For other scholarly purposes, the contextual information and commentary around the text (the introductions and the annotations, for example) might be the most important work of the edition.  This might be true for texts designed for student scholars, or for use in disciplines other than literary studies.  Even in literary studies, the textual work of an edition is more important for some works and some historical periods than others.

A student edition of Terence, designed to enable the student to make inter-linear translations (1521)
Fisher Rare Book Library B-10 5336

A scholarly edition of Terence with an emphasis on commentary (1544)
Fisher Rare Book Library hutt 00012

In his emphasis on the textual work of the scholarly edition (as opposed to the contextualizing work) Shillingsburg arguable blurs the line between the scholarly edition in general and the critical edition in particular.  A critical edition focuses more fully on the text. D. C. Greetham defines a scholar edition as an edition that attempts to establish a text through the exercise of editorial judgment and/or choice, as opposed to merely reproducing a text already in existence (347).  It should contain “an apparatus that presents the evidence used in the text’s construction and that lists the variants of the authoritative states... ”; and “since critical editions are eclectic [i.e., in the sense of requiring choice among variant alternatives],” their preparers “must have some principle of eclecticism, some basis on which to judge the authority of the variant readings and states of the text and on which to make emendations” (Williams and Abbott, 57).

Works Cited

Greetham, D. C. Textual Scholarship. New York: Garland, 1994.

Terence. Comoediae. Paris, 1521.

--------. Comoediae. Venice, 1544.

Williams, Bill and Craig Abbott. An Introduction to Bibliography and Textual Studies. 2d ed. New York: MLA, 1989.

Defining the Scholarly Edition

The current focus of INKE extending into the coming year is the scholarly edition.  This was an opening gambit from the Textual Studies team as INKE began to think about how we might re-imagine this well developed print genre in the digital medium.

Scholarly editions are moving targets, both diachronically and synchronically, which means that any single definition will be provisional, but also that the scholarly edition is inherently a rich manifestation of a diverse range åçof practices. 

Peter Shillingsburg has recently defined scholarly editing with a strong emphasis on the materiality of the text: “The core goal of all scholarly editing (regardless of medium) is to provide a reliable text of a historical work and allow readers to see or feel or sense the historical materialities and contexts of the work. This contrasts with most Internet-available texts from which the materiality of the source book has been stripped away like a banana peel” (“Impact” 22). His definition and the distinction it relies upon might not be universally accepted, but it is a helpful point of reference as we consider both what might be gain and what might be lost in moving scholars editing from the page to the screen.

Shillingsburg links his definition to a list of specific desiderata for digital scholarly editions (Gutenberg 92-3), all of which might translate into specific affordances that could be modelled and implemented in prototypes. In that spirit, and for INKE’s purposes, we find that scholarly editions tend to have at least some of the following characteristics:

• they account for the text’s transmission over time, including changes made by the creator of the present edition
• they account for alternate versions of the text
• they provide additional information to explain or comment upon the text
• they provide an instance of the text
• they include finding mechanisms for sub-sets (word, section, chapter, etc.) of the text

Works Cited

Peter Shillingsburg. From Gutenberg to Google. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006.

Peter Shillingsburg. “The Impact of Computers on the Art of Scholarly Editing.” Electronic Publishing: Politics and Pragmatics. Ed. Gabriel Egan. Toronto & Tempe, AZ: Iter/Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2010. 17–29.

A Follow-up Spotlight on the Opening as a Meaning Making Device: The interface of the early modern polyglot bibles

Galey in his ArchBook entry on "The Opening" makes the case that in many ways, it is the opening, not the single page, that should be considered the basic reading surface of the printed book.  The page opening as reading interface is essential to the great polyglot Bibles of the 16^th and 17^th centuries,[1] which in their fullest development required two full pages to present all of the parallel texts in one view to the reader.  This fact of publication is important, yet strangely (though as Galey suggests, perhaps not surprisingly) overlooked by a recent scholar of the London polyglot who describes this book as a “triumph of technology” for “being the first Bible to print all the versions side-by-side on the same page” (Miller, 467 my emphasis).  Indeed, it is an essential feature of these publications that the opening, not the page, constitutes the full reading interface.

The basic form of the polyglot Bible was established by the first of these,[2] the Complutensian polyglot (Alcalá, 1514-1517), which presents the Hebrew, Latin Vulgate, and Greek Septuagint (interlined with a Latin translation) in parallel columns across the top three-quarters of the page, with (for the Pentateuch only) Onkelos’s Chaldee/Aramaic targum (i.e. paraphrase)[3] together with an accompanying Latin translation across the bottom.  The recto and verso each contain a full set of texts, but they are presented in mirror-image to each other: moving from left to right across the opening, Hebrew, Latin Vulgate, and Greek Septuagint on the verso, then in reverse, Greek, Latin, Hebrew on the recto; similarly, along the bottom of the opening, the Aramaic, in Hebrew characters, with a Latin translation (verso), and then the Latin followed by the Aramaic (recto).  In this polyglot, the full set of parallel texts fits on a single page, but the mirrored image of these from verso to recto implies that the full opening—verso and recto together—is the basic interface of this book.  The centrality of the Latin Vulgate in this page layout is curious but easy to explain.  The theological rationale is articulated by James Lyell:

The position of honour given to the Vulgate ... is emphasised in [this bible’s] Second Preface, where it is stated that as our Lord was crucified between two thieves, so the Latin Church stands between the Synagogue and the Greek Church (29).

This explanation is based on ecclesiological (the pre-eminence of the Latin church) rather than textual grounds, for the whole project was undertaken with the conviction that biblical scholarship must go back to a study of the primary languages (Lyell, 27, 29).  The centrality of the Latin Vulgate text on the page might also be rationalized on the basis of the reading environment.  For scholars of the period, the Latin Vulgate was the familiar version of the Bible, the centre of their textual knowledge.  Even for many theologians and humanist scholars of the period, the original languages existed on the margins of their understanding, so the Vulgate remained the central reference point.  It is less easy to explain why the Hebrew and Greek are arranged in mirrour-image to each other across the opening, but again, the layout of the page might have been a factor.  The outer margins of the pages provide root words for the Hebrew and Aramaic texts, but not for the Greek.  By keeping the Hebrew texts on the outer edges of the page−both the verso and the recto−the printer (perhaps with input from Cardinal Ximenes, the patron and supervising editor of the project) could relegate the most marginal matter to the outer edges and maintain clearly justified columns toward the centre of the opening.  The layout of the page thus represents the priority of the material with respect to the interests of the reader, with the familiar Latin at the centre and the original-language helps on the margins.  The rationale for the arrangement of the Aramaic at the bottom of the page is less obvious: why is the Aramaic in the centre of the opening on verso and recto, separated from the root words in the margins by the Latin translation?  It may be that the Latin here serves a marginal function (i.e. it is not the vulgate), as a kind of gloss on the original text.  The opening is much less important in the New Testament portion of this bible, where the principal parts are only the Greek original and the Latin translation.  Rather than root words in the margin, the page provides marginal cross references and, on rare occasion (only five in the whole New Testament) marginal annotations (Lyell, 34, 44).

           

figure1:  The opening of Exodus 2 from the Complutensian Polyglot.  Internet Archive CCL.

figure 2:  The opening of 1 John 5 in the Complutensian Polyglot, 

with a rare marginalannotation in the footer.  Internet Archive CCL.

The 1569 Biblia Sacra, Hebraice, Chaldaice, Graece et Latine, known as the “Antwerp or Plantin’s Polyglot” (named after its printer, Christophe Plantin) presents, across a single, full opening, four different versions in four columns: the Hebrew; the Latin Vulgate; Arias Montano’s revision of Xantes Pagninus’s Latin version from the Greek[4]; and the Greek Septuagint.[5]  At the bottom runs another parallel series: the Chaldean Aramaic version on the left, with a paraphrase in Latin on the right.  The antecedent languages are easily distinguished by their character sets, and the two Latin texts are distinguished by use of regular (Vulgate) and italics font (Arias Montano’s version).  The opening has a similar mirrored effect, with the two Latin versions situated in the middle of the opening, even though this places them in inverse relation to their original language antecedents.

figure 3: The Antwerp polyglot (1569), opening at 1 Kings (i.e. 1 Samuel).  

 Fisher Rare Book Library CCL.

 The last and most mature of the great polyglots is Brian Walton’s Biblia Sacra Polyglotta (1655-7), commonly known as the “London Polyglot.”  Like the Antwerp polyglot, it presents its texts across the full opening, containing now (for the Pentateuch) a total of thirteen discrete texts in one view: Hebrew (with word for work Latin interlineated) in parallel with the Latin Vulgate, the Greek (Septuagint) with the standard Latin translation that predated Jerome’s Vulgate; Onkelos’s “Chaldee” (Aramaic) targum (parphrase) with a Latin translation, [two texts of?] the Samaritan Pentateuch with Latin translation, and along the bottom, the Syriac and Arabic versions, each with Latin translations.[6]  Again, the primacy of Latin as the familiar language is evident in the matching of original language texts with Latin translations.  Walton’s 19^th-century biographer, Henry J. Todd, quotes in full Walton’s published description of his planned work, where he explains the many advantages of the polyglot format:

The several languages shall be printed in several columns, whereby they may all be presented to the reader’s view at once; whereas in the other Editions divers great volumes must be turned over to compare them together (42).[7]

This multi-sectioned opening provides a maximized space that correlates by implicit links a series of parallel texts from diverse sources, presenting a scholar’s entire desktop in one viewing interface.

figure 4: Walton’s London Polyglot, opening at Exodus 1.  

 Fisher Rare Book Library CCL.

As is the case with other developments in bible technology, this innovation of the parallel text interface grew from the demands and needs presented by the textual material itself and the intellectual framework and methods of its readers.  For Walton, as for the earlier humanists, it was the need to purge received translations of their error and bias by having recourse to the text in its antecedent languages for comparison across all versions, a task that previously would have required a very large desk full of open folios.[8]

Notes:

---

[1] These are the Complutensian Polyglot (Spain, 1514-1517); the Plantin or Antwerp polyglot (Antwerp, 1569 and 1572); and the Paris Polyglot (1645); and Walton’s London Polyglot (Todd 34-5).

[2] Brian Walton in fact found his ultimate source of inspiration in the idea of Origen’s Hexpala and its columnar arrangement of different Hebrew and Greek texts in parallel, and regretted the loss of these artefacts to history (Miller 473).

[3] Lyell calls it a “paraphrase” (28).  The genre of the targum is ambiguous, sometimes considered translation, sometimes commentary: “paraphrase” captures some of this ambiguity.

[4] “Versions of the Bible” in The Original CatholicEncyclopedia: “Xantes Pagninus, O.P. (d. 1541), made an inter-linear version of both the Old and New Testaments from the original languages, which by its literal fidelity pleased Christians and Jews and was much used by the Reformers. A revision of this translation resulting in a text even more literal was made by Arias Montano. His work appeared in the Antwerp Polyglot (1572).”

[5] See Elly Cockx-Indestege.

[6] The configuration of versions and translations vary across the Bible, depending on which were available of each section of the Bible: the Psalms, Canticles, and the New Testament, for example, include an Ethiopic version.

[7] Todd cites this source as a pre-publication proposal, published in 1652 with the title A Brief Description of an Edition of the bible in the Original Hebrew, Samaritan, and Greek, with the most ancient translations of the Jewish and Christian Churches, viz. the Sept. Greek, Chaldee, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, Persian &c. and the Latin Versions of them all: a new Apparatus, &c.  This echoes Walton’s expressed vision (in manuscript) for

an edition in the originall Languages, with the most auncient Translations according to better and more authentick coppies then those of the former editions, with addition of sundry thinges usefull wch are wanting in them all, and the same digested in such order, whereby the severall Languages may be represented to the readers view at once, and the whole maybe printed in a few and easy volumes, and sold at the price aforesaid (quoted in Miller from British Library, Additional mss 32,093, fol. 333r).  

In his advertisement and prospectus (reprinted by Todd) Walton is perhaps alluding to his arrangement of the parallels texts on the page when he refers to the benefit of having “the several languages digested in better method,” i.e. in comparison with the previous polyglots (36).

[8] Miller notes that for Walton, working in a period of considerable strife and conflict in the national church, the polyglot was a way of combating sectarianism which he and others like him believed to be driven by ignorance (470-1).  The diversity of text together in one opening might rightly be considered an emblem of erudition overcoming the divisions caused by ignorance.

Bibliography:

Arias Montano, Benito, et al. Biblia Sacra, Hebraice, Chaldaice, Graece Et Latine: Philippi II. Reg. Cathol. Pietate, Et Studio Ad Sacrosanctae Ecclesiae Vsum, Christoph Plantinus Excud. Excud. Antuerpiae: Christoph Plantinus, 1569; 1572.

Cockx-Indestege, Elly. “1569 -1572 Christopher Plantin’s Biblia regi.”  Library of the University of Amsterdam.  http://cf.uba.uva.nl/nl/publicaties/treasures/text/t09.html

Harris, Fletcher. “Milton and Walton’s Biblia Sacra Polyglotta (1657).” MLN 42.2 (Feb 1927): 84-7.

----. Milton’s Semitic Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1926.

Lyell, James.  Cardinal Ximines: Statesman, Ecclesiastic, Soldier, and Man of Letters with an Account of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible.  London: Grafton, 1917.

Miller, Peter N.  “The ‘Antiquarianization’ of Biblical Scholarship and the London Polyglot Bible.”  JHI 62 (2001): 463-82.

Todd, Henry J. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Walton. 2 vols. London, 1821.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=ocE9AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

“In Folio: Rare Volumes in the Stanford University Libraries.”  Stanford University Libraries.

http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/spc/exhibits/in_folio/biblia_polyglotta.htm

Saurat, Denis.  Milton, Man and Thinker.  London: Jonathan Cape, [1924].

Walton, Brian, Wenceslaus Hollar, and Pierre Lombart. Biblia Sacra Polyglotta: Complectentia Textus Originales, Hebraicum, Cum Pentateucho Samaritano, Chaldaicum, Graecum, Versionumque Antiquarum, Samaritanae, Graecae LXXII Interp., Chaldaicae, Syriacae, Arabicae, Aethiopicae, Persicae, Vulg. Lat. Quicquid Comparari Poterat. Cum Textuum & Versionum Orientalium Translationibus Latinis: Ex Vetustissimis Mss. Undique Conquisitis, Optim¡sque Exemplaribus Impressis, Summƒ Fide Collatis: Quae in Prioribus Editionibus Deerant Suppleta ...: Opus Totum in Sex Tomos Tributum. 6 vols. London: Thomas Roycroft, 1655-1657.

Criteria for Creating User-Friendly Interactive Network Visualizations

As a newcomer to the Digital Humanities, I first encountered network visualizations in early January of 2012; given my near-total inexperience and ignorance, there are doubtlessly more qualified people to write about the positive and negative qualities of such visualizations. However, I may have something valuable to contribute, precisely because I have attempted to navigate and make sense of these visualizations as an outsider.

When I began examining interactive network visualizations, I often found the internal logic and criteria used to create them baffling or arbitrary; however, I also found some visualizations to be completely intuitive. In an attempt to put my finger on the differences between these two sets of visualizations, I composed a list of features without which I was invariably lost. Eventually, this list grew into a set of criteria for generating relatively transparent and user-friendly network visualizations. I hope this set of criteria can be of use to someone:

1. Consider the reason for everything (including the criteria for item selection and identity, significance of physical space and distance between nodes, nature of relationships suggested by lines connecting nodes, how values are assigned to nodes, etc.), define discrete criteria, and be consistent
2.  Explain the reasons for everything; a visualization can be useful to its creators without this step, but will not be useful (or worse still, will not be used correctly) by others unless the reasoning behind a visualization is clear; all visualizations should be accompanied by methodological explanations if they are to be of use to the wider community
3.  Beware the argument of false analogy: the reduction of real-world items to nodes connected by lines is intrinsically metaphorical and can lead to false conclusions when nodes are used in ways that do not fit with the definitions of the nodes themselves, the nature of the relationships between them as defined in a visualization, or both; each visualization is a metaphor, and errors occur when arguments are made that take any metaphor too far; this is a particular danger when inheriting visualizations or visualization frameworks
4.  There is a tendency for network visualizations to decrease in utility as they increase in size and complexity. However, there are ways to counter this:   
• A text search option (a must)
• Enabling the application of multiple filters (it is typically not enough to highlight items selected by certain criteria, and there should be a way to eliminate the other data in a refined visualization); ideally, an interactive visualization would combine predefined and user-generated filters
• The reasoning behind these filters should be made explicit, as per points 1-3 
• If necessary, minimize interconnectivity and network density (everything can connect to everything else, but if it does, relationships are probably defined too generally to be useful – or nodes are not defined discretely enough)
• In the case of 3D visualizations, the depth of visualizations ought to be considered carefully; particularly in spherical visualizations, field depth often makes it difficult to see anything but the nearest surface (to such a degree that the outer surface of such a visualization may as well be opaque, for all the good its transparency does); often, opacity would be preferable, in fact, as the background noise in a 3D visualization can be extremely distracting
5. Visualizations ought to be supplemented with a text version of the data that that is being represented (I have not yet found this, but it would be extremely useful); though unexpected patterns can sometimes “jump out” of visualizations – to use the preferred metaphor of many visualization proponents – they can also jump out of raw data
6.  Enable an ordered way of entering complex or chaotic visualizations; something as simple as an alphabetized list of nodes linked to the visualization could make it much easier to access a visualization for a specific purpose (creating an arbitrary demarcation point is undesirable for a variety of reasons, but this would be preferable to no demarcation point)

Here are a couple of visualizations to consider:

GE. “Healthymagination.” http://visualization.geblogs.com/visualization/network/.

This visualization does many things effectively. First, it provides two distinct layout options (Images 1.1 & 1.2); given the complexity of this network, the ability to change perspective is very useful.

Image 1.1

The circular mode of visualization (1.2) is particularly useful because of the lack of labels and greatly varied type size in the first mode of visualization – though the latter remains somewhat of an issue even in the second mode of visualization.

Image 1.2

Even in the first mode of visualization, steps are taken to offset the lack of visibility created by the field depth and network density. Most significantly, a text box appears with information about a given node when the mouse pointer is placed over that node (1.3).

Image 1.3

In addition, this visualization provides both a useful set of predetermined categories, which greatly reduce the displayed information when selected (1.4 & 1.5), and a functional search option.

Image 1.4

Image 1.5

Finally, while this visualization does not provide access to raw data outside of the visualization, it does provide some information (though nowhere near enough) about both the reasoning behind the visualization, and the associated data (1.6).

Image 1.6

Moebio. “Spheres: Spherical Surface of Dialogue.” http://moebio.com/esfera/sphere/esfera.htm.

There are several issues that severely limit the utility of “Spheres.” First, the visual depth of field greatly limits the ability to be able to identify a significant number of nodes simultaneously (2.1).

Image 2.1

Even though there is a “point of vue” option that allows one to zoom in (2.2), this option does little to improve the situation; the zoom is not variable, and the pre-set zoom does not move to a distance that improves overall visibility.

Image 2.2

Although dragging the mouse causes the sphere to rotate, a large percentage of the nodes remain difficult to perceive simply because such small a portion of the nodes appear within a readable range. An option that would either flatten the sphere into two dimensions or reduce the field depth would solve this problem. In addition, a text-box that appears when the mouse pointer is placed over a node (as is shown in 1.3) would make it possible to see the connections between points on opposite ends of the sphere. As the visualization exists now, it is extremely difficult to seek and select a specific node the rear half of the sphere; connecting nodes on opposite sides of the sphere is virtually impossible.

Furthermore, the explanations for network connectivity are often arbitrary, pointless, and baffling. For instance, when selecting “pleasure” and “a white tiger,” the explanation that appears is “VWYEHRIFN” (2.3).

Image 2.3

Though “VWYEHRIFN” may mean something to someone, it means nothing to me; as nothing appeared when I entered this into google, I suspect that others are likely to find this explanation equally perplexing.

The issue here seems to be that the relationships between items are generated by the users, who are able to define or refine the relationships between any items they select. While this seems to bring an element of democratic collaboration to “Spheres,” it has the potential to undermine both the legitimacy of the connections drawn and the consistency of the types of relationships defined by the lines connecting nodes. (Incidentally, before capturing Image 2.3, I had intended to connect “pleasure” with “desire,” but as the footprint of the “a white tiger” node was too large to allow items near it to be chosen, I inadvertently selected “a white tiger.” When I repositioned the sphere and successfully connected “pleasure” with “desire,” no relationship appeared.)