Thomas Technology Solutions, Inc. Creates Electronic Version of World's Largest Latin Dictionary.

Business Editors

HORSHAM, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 7, 2003

Thomas Technology Solutions, Inc. (ThomasTech), a software and systems integrator, has developed a searchable, electronic version of the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL) for K. G. Saur Verlag, the Munich, Germany-based publisher of the monolingual Latin lexicon.

ThomasTech's Electronic Publishing Services Group worked with K. G. Saur Verlag to digitize the TLL, the authoritative starting point for all research involving Latin. The TLL documents and describes the use of Latin in surviving texts up to A.D. 600 and is used by Latin scholars, researchers, and students worldwide.

"This version provides in-depth search and display possibilities, opening up a spectacular view on the richness of the largest Latin dictionary in the world," said Clara Waldrich, publishing director, K.G. Saur Verlag. "The electronic Thesaurus is an ongoing cooperative project. Retrieval of decades of scholarly editorial work has been made possible by the excellent software and work of our partners at ThomasTech."

Before ThomasTech created the electronic version, the TLL existed only as printed volumes -- which take up more than four feet of shelf space. Now, a single CD contains the Index Librorum and 33 of 154 fascicles published up to 2002, with more to follow.

In developing the CD-ROM version of the TLL, ThomasTech needed to ensure a high level of precision in the production process because it is composed of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew characters along with a number of unique, special characters. ThomasTech provided the functionality to navigate, retrieve, link, and display the electronic text, so users can easily find detailed documentation of usage, etymology, history, and the survival of Latin words in other languages. For full-text searching of the electronic TLL, ThomasTech used dtSearch Text Retrieval Engine software.

"The TLL is a good example of ThomasTech's ability to convert a large volume of complex content into the format and presentation a client desires," said Lynda Brooks, ThomasTech's VP sales and marketing. "With the TLL, we were able to create an electronic version of a key Latin reference work that will give scholars a powerful research tool, saving them valuable time and effort."

About K.G. Saur Verlag

K.G. Saur Verlag is one of the leading publishers for information and documentation, focusing on reference works and bibliographies for libraries and the book-trade worldwide, library catalogues, Who's Who publications, and biographical reference works issued as books, microfiches, CD-ROMs and online editions. K.G. Saur specializes in editing source material and reference works on art, music, film, history, politics, contemporary history, science and technology. K.G. Saur publishes 1,900 titles in German, English, French, Arabic, Chinese, and Italian.

About Thomas Tech

Thomas Technology Solutions, Inc. is a software and systems integrator providing content management and publishing solutions and services to commercial publishers and industrial manufacturers. ThomasTech builds solutions by combining industry-leading third-party software, custom-developed components, and value-added integration, implementation, and production services. Headquartered in Horsham, Pa., with additional offices in London, UK, ThomasTech is a wholly owned subsidiary of Thomas Publishing Company. ThomasTech maintains partner relationships with Arbortext, Inc., Corel Corporation, Documentum, Inc., IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Oracle Corporation, and SAQQARA(R) Systems, Inc. For more information, visit www.thomastechsolutions.com.

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