Internet Archaeol. 10. The Archaeology of Southern Ontario

The CD-Rom: content

The CD provides the entire text of the Green Bible, with links to references, maps and many illustrations of artifacts. A pull-down index, accessible from the tool bar at any point, provides links to chapters.

The Green Bible is a very large book and its organization is, perhaps necessarily, rigid. To a considerable extent, this is due to the problem inherent in presenting a complex co-tradition in linear book format: one's perspective is focussed by the order in which information is encountered and, inevitably, one branch of the co-tradition appears dominant, by virtue of its precedence.

This is exactly the area in which electronic publishing excels over print, and one applauds the decision to translate the Green Bible into a CD. Ideally, the reader can enter the CD at any point, hypertext through it on selected lines of reasoning, and derive his or her own conclusions.

"It is a resource that is meant to be used. Every single reference in the text has been hot-linked to the appropriate bibliographic reference, photograph, drawing, map or table. Everything within the whole volume is no more than a couple of mouse clicks away. You can instantly get from anywhere to anywhere," (Adams, 2001).

But be warned, "It is NOT bedtime reading," (Adams, 2001).