Reading Lists

(and Topic Lists)

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Reading Lists Defined

From Logos:
Reading Lists are lists of specific, targeted resources determined to be valuable by the Logos community for a given topic. They are intended to be more than just another list of commentaries and dictionaries. Buried within many libraries are journal articles, entire chapters and even entire books on topics that lay buried because they are never returned by the results of a guide. They add tremendous value to the discussion of a topic but they generally get overlooked because they are never returned by some automated source or they do not stand out in search results.

Reading lists are put together by Logos users, giving an intelligent element to the collection of resources. By putting the results of your hard, data-collecting work into a reading list, you not only benefit yourself when you come back to the topic in the future, you also benefit others who study that topic down the road. All those resources that are usually overlooked are now just a click away, as easily accessible as the Passage Guide results. My hope is that the potential of readings lists are realized and invested in so that it does not become another tool with potential that never bore fruit.

Note: there is one special reading list “web resources” that is intended to provide quick access to websites of interest to Logos users.

Examples

There are two places where data in topics.logos.com is visible:

  • the Reading List panel in Logos
  • the topics.logos.com wiki

Using the example of the Magnificat, here is the Reading List generated from the topics.logos.com wiki entry. Note that clicking on Edit in the reading list panel takes you directly to the wiki page.
 

    
 

Note that the Reading List comes completely from the wiki; where the sections are created by users.


    


Using Reading Lists

If you click on a Reading List name that appears under Recently Added, you will see the list displayed in the following format.
 

    
 

The symbol to the left of a reading shows 3 possible conditions:

  • empty box – the reading has not been read
  • box with check mark – the user has checked the box to indicate that they have read the reading or that they are not intending to read it
  • padlock – the reading refers to a resource not currently available on this Logos installation.
    This can either mean that you do not own the resource or that you have hidden the resource.

Note the option at the top to mark all articles as read.

Accessing the Reading Lists

Click on Reading Lists in the Tools menu.
The panel has a Search box for screening the available reading lists.
 

    
 

You can also reach the Search box from the All Lists option in the Reading List pane.



Editing

Both the Topic Lists and Reading Lists are updated on wiki pages at http://topics.logos.com/. If you are in a Reading List, the Edit button provides direct access to the appropriate wiki page.
You may also enter the URL https://topics.logos.com/ into your browser; from where you can enter the topic you wish to edit.

Select the Edit tab to bring the page up for editing (see Topics wiki)

From here, you need to be familiar with basic wiki editing.

Editing the Topic List

There are three areas for Logos users to update. Common courtesy says you should not remove entries added by other users. There are times when it is appropriate to change the sequence of entries (e.g. alphabetize, canonical order) or standardize an entry.

Alternative Labels

This area contains alternative names (synonyms) for the topic word. Each entry has its own line. The format is an asterisk, a space, the alternative name. In the display, the asterisks are converted to bullets.
 


 

In this area, the more alternatives the better. The terminology changes from one set of users to another; this list makes it useful to a maximum number of people. The values here control the results of a search.

Key Passages

The key passages are to be just that – key. Simply enter the Biblical reference for each key passage in the format asterisk, space, reference.
 


 

The web links portion is intended to have links to useful related articles available on the web. Wikipedia is a standard entry. Note that it is specific articles rather than home pages of web sites that are intended. Choose those articles that you truly wish to recommend to your friends.

The format for these links was inconsistent until the links to Logos resources in the Reading Lists were standardized by automatic generation. The format is asterisk, space, two opening square brackets, article title, space, two greater than signs, URL of article, two closing square brackets, space, pipe character, space, author and occasionally additional information.
 


 

Before the use of topics was obvious, early adopters created a new section for labels that have meaning only in relationship to each other, e.g. major prophets, minor prophets. It is updated in the same manner as Alternate Labels. However, it has no official function in the Logos schema.

Use of Topic Data

In its current state, Logos uses the data maintained under topics as follows:

  • Alternative Labels are used as search elements within topics.logos.com
  • Web links are displayed (along with a link to the Reading List) when:
    • the search term is included in the Logos Controlled Vocabulary list and
    • web links occur in the appropriate topic wiki page
  • Key Passages does not appear to be used currently [please update this page if they are used.]

Editing the Reading List

Creating a reading list is generally a simpler task. First navigate to the page you wish to edit in the same manner as for the Topic List. Unlike the topic section, the Reading List section is not pregenerated by Logos.

First one needs to learn one piece of wiki formatting:
Exclamation marks at the beginning of a line indicate that the line is a heading e.g. 3 exclamation marks (!!!) indicates that it is a subheading of a 2 exclamation mark heading, etc.

To create a Reading List on an existing topic, begin by typing in the heading information. It comes after the Key Passages section of the Topic List.
 


 

  • Since the Reading List is a subheading under the topic, it begins with two exclamation points.
  • The content of the first two lines never changes; simply copy them.
  • The only portion of the third line that changes is the name of the creator, in this example “Logos”. Replace “Logos” with your name
  • Generally, you’ll want to put a blank line after these three lines. It simply makes it easier to identify the parts of the Reading List
  • The next line is an example of adding a line of text to the reading list. In this case it is a simple definition of Magnificat for people who may not be familiar with the text by its Latin name: “The Magnificat, or Song of Mary, is Mary’s response to the Visitation, in Luke 1:46-55.” Note that the slash marks indicate the word(s) are to be displayed in italics.
  • For the same reason as before, you might want to leave a blank line
  • Finally, enter the first heading for your reading list starting with 3 exclamation points (or more).

Some general guidelines:

  • If a wiki page exists for your topic, please use that page rather than creating a duplicate page.
  • Do not remove someone else’s entries, although you may rearrange the entries or standardize the entry.
  • If you are using the reading list for a class or to supplement reading a particular resource, do one of the following:
    • Put a comment at the beginning and the end of your reading list requesting that your reading list not be changed but that additional resources be added below (or above) your list
    • Put your entire reading list under a 3 exclamation point heading identifying the reading list as having fixed content for your purpose.
  • There are no set patterns for organizing the references into headings and subheadings. Do something that works with the resources you are listing. If organization is not your thing, look at several similar reading lists to get ideas.

Types of resources:

  • Books not available in Logos: These are often given their own heading titled “external sources”. Preferable you would include complete bibliographic data but a title and author will do. Generally such entries begin with an asterisk and space.
  • Web links: usually there is no need to duplicate the web links for the topic. However, it may be necessary for class reading lists. The format for these entries is the same as for the topics list (see above).
  • Logos resources: these should be the bulk of your entries. Logos provides a copy and paste link. You simply enter asterisk, space, then paste.

How to copy and paste:

  • Open the resource’s panel menu:



  • Click on RL (Reading List format)
  • Use CTRL+V to paste.

Special notes for Biblical references:

  • If you simply enter a Biblical reference in the Reading List it will automatically link to bible.logos.com
  • If you copy the RL link as you would for any other book link, it will link to that specific translation in Logos.

Partial source for Magnificat Reading List
 


 

Creating

From Logos:
When should you think about creating a reading list? Any time you find an article that you highly value as authoritative on a subject but that does not come up by one of Logos’ automated means, you should either add it to a reading list (see Editing) or create one. Even if it’s the only article on the reading list, it’s worth having. The hardest part about a reading list is starting it. Once it’s started it’s relatively easy for others to add resources to it.

Steps in creating a reading list

  • Find the wiki page for the topic
  • Add the reading list fixed lines
  • Add reading list elements as described in the edit process above

Find page for topic

Enter a topic (person, place, writing, etc.) into the Search box of the topics.logos.com wiki.
If the topic is found, select Edit. If the topic is not found, see below for how to add a topic.

Add the 3 reading list fixed lines

The first two lines added after the end of the Key Passages section are always entered exactly as shown. The third line requires replacing “John Doe” with your name.

Add reading list items

The adding of reading items is done as described in editing a reading list. These is, as yet, no standard way to organize the readings.


Add a topic page

In general, Logos expects to preload the Logos Controlled Vocabulary topics into topics.logos.com. However, you will find topics that are not yet in the wiki.

Steps in adding a new topic:

  • Verify that the topic does not exist before creating a blank topic
  • Find a similar topic
  • Add heading lines
  • Add topic lines
  • Add wikipedia entry
  • Optionally, add reading list lines
  • Save your work

Verify that the topic does not exist before creating a blank topic.

For this example, we will take Susanna from the deuterocanonical (apocryphal) portion of Daniel.
The first step is to search on the topic “Susanna”. This returns only one result – the New Testament Susanna.

     

So click on Create New Page to begin a new page for Susanna from the book of Daniel.

Find a similar topic

The basic heading lines for a topic give its displayed name, the type and subtype and an internal name; in other words it contains the technical ‘stuff’ that makes the wiki work. The best way to fill this section is to find a similar entry, copy the lines into your new page, and modify them to fit your topic.

For a similar topic, take Susanna the disciple. In edit mode, copy the heading information:

Add heading lines

Paste the heading information from the similar topic into the new topic page. Modify the Title and the lcv_id to be unique.

The header information varies by the category of the topic. These are typical examples:

Until we are given a complete list of defined values, it is safest to simply copy and modify from a related page.

Add topic lines

The headings under topics have been discussed above. Simply insert the fixed lines:

Add wikipedia entry

Logos has included wikipedia entries in the preloaded entries. If a wikipedia entry is available, add it to your new page.

Optionally, add reading list lines

This is described in detail above. In other words, it is the same as adding a reading list to an existing topic.

Save your work

Review your changes then click on the wiki Save button.



Recovering from a bad update

Occasionally, one may wish to undo a change. Be very careful not to lose other people’s work. At the lower bottom of the topic update window is a “Revert to” box. Select the version you wish to revert to and you will remove the erroneous update.

Last modified 2022 April by Admin

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