Thomas Technology Solutions, Inc. (ThomasTech) has provided solutions to industry-leading publishers and manufacturers for more than 40 years. With roots in directory and page composition, pre-press services and information management, ThomasTech’s solutions have evolved from devising systems to more efficiently deliver information via the printed page, to applying technology to facilitate the management and transmission of information via electronic media.

The Electronic Publishing Services (EPS) Group of ThomasTech focuses on bibliography lists and linguistic references for libraries and scholars around the world. Included in this group’s projects is the creation of an electronic version of the authoritative monolingual Latin lexicon, the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL). The TLL documents and describes the use of the Latin language in surviving texts up to A.D. 600. Work on this lexicon began in 1894 and continues today.

Published by KG Saur Verlag, the TLL is the authoritative starting point for all research involving Latin. Typically, Latin philologists, Latin scholars, Latin students, and others interested in Classical Studies will find great use in this research tool. It provides detailed documentation of usage, etymology, history, and the survival of Latin in other languages. The TLL further supports its presentation with citations of Latin texts and scholarly articles. The TLL is composed of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew characters along with a number of unique, special characters.

Before electronic conversion, the TLL only existed as printed volumes—consuming more than four feet of shelf space. The published volumes of the TLL to date are volumes A-M and O.

ThomasTech's role in this project was to create an exact replication on CD of the existing printed version of the TLL with a customized interface. ThomasTech provided the functionality to navigate, retrieve, link, and display the newly captured electronic text of the TLL. For full-text searching across the electronic TLL, ThomasTech chose the dtSearch Text Retrieval Engine.

"We liked the versatility of the dtSearch Engine," said Nick Naro, Director, Electronic Publishing Services at ThomasTech. "Technical support has been very helpful. Working with dtSearch has been nothing but good news."

For more information on the ThomasTech Electronic Publishing Services Group, please call 1-800-872-2828 or (215) 682-5000, or visit ThomasTech on the Web at www.thomastechsolutions.com.