Advanced Papyrological Information System (APIS)

The original version of APIS was hosted at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/projects/digital/apis/index.html; but it is now available (in conjunction with DDBDP and HGV) via http://papyri.info. The old interface is slated for retirement soon.

The Advanced Papyrological Information System (APIS) is a web-based, searchable database of information about, and images of, papyrological materials (e.g. papyri, ostraca, wood tablets, etc) located in collections around the world. APIS was conceived in the early 1990s and began work in 1995 as a consortium of six partner institutions (Berkeley, Columbia, Duke, Michigan, Princeton, and Yale). Initially, APIS partners concentrated funds and effort on creating local records and images for papyri in their collections, and on establishing a central database and associated web interface, which may be thought of as a specialized union catalog. This content creation, with a gradually expanding universe of collections, continued as the main focus through 2005. Records are prepared by the participating collections and contributed to the central APIS database, which currently comprises ~31,000 records and ~23,500 images from 26 collections worldwide.

A standard APIS record provides a physical description and bibliographic information about a text-bearing object in one of the source collections, as well as digital images and an English translation of the text itself, when these are available. Links are also provided to original-language transcriptions of the texts when these are available through another resource (i.e., the Duke Data Bank of Documentary Papyri as hosted at papyri.info). The APIS record normally links back to the original catalog record at the originating institution. These sometimes provide access to more information than is available in the APIS database. Users of the current APIS web interface can access records via browse or search. Browsing is via separate lists of subject words, documentary or literary types, writing materials and languages. A variety of keyword and field-based search options are also supported, including a simple translation substring search. Original language search is not currently supported; however, tighter integration with the DDbDP will provide this capability through the new Papyrological Navigator web application.

Future Developments for APIS

Beginning in 2010, APIS will begin to migrate to new tooling and record formats shared with those developed for DDBDP and HGV. For more information and planning documents see: APISMigration.