The Perseus project would result in theproduction of the discs for approximately $50. Inaddition to containing heavily annotated directsources from Greek literature, the disc wouldcontain 10,000 images.
The computer screening of the contents of thedisc would be a lot like reading a book, Cranesays. There would be footnotes running along sidethe text which would vary in complexity accordingto the level of the reader. Crane says that thecomputer-stored information would be able to beused by lay student and scholar alike.
Computer packagers of texts will become theequivalent of the editor of the traditionalclassics texts, Crane says. It will require thesame decisions about the validity of texts andannotation that the editors of books must make, headds.
Such analysis of texts is one of the mostimportant roles of a scholar, Crane says.
"One of the most respected areas of scholarshipis being the one who gets the most information tothe people," Crane says.
"The people who have the most clout edit thetexts," he says.
A spokesman for the agency giving the moneysays that the money is the second stage of acontract which will result in a test disc at theend of a year. Crane said he expectsmass-production of the disc in three years, whichwould require more grant money