A very quick reply from Glasgow University Library. It’s good news — they can do me a photocopy of vol.2 of Bar Hebraeus Chronicon Ecclesiasticum for 24 GBP ($36). That is not much more than I spent on a Kessinger reproduction of vol. 3 last week. Unfortunately we have to pay a further 20% to the government — the tax gatherers demand a percentage whenever any of us take a deep breath. There will also be a postage charge to deliver the pile of paper.
They’re very good, and their charge is quite reasonable compared with some libraries. But it highlights just how much we all owe to Google Books and Archive.org. These two sites make millions upon millions of these books available, for nothing. You don’t have to pay the government to be allowed to read, nor the postal service to deliver them.
Once I get the thing, I will run it through my scanner and put it online as a PDF. That will be another book that none of us will have to pay to access.
If this were Facebook I would push the “like” button.
The sentiment is appreciated anyway!
Dear Roger,
Excellent news! You are indeed a public benefactor.
Having a convenient text of the second volume to hand will definitely spur me to continue with my ongoing translation of the Chronicon Ecclesiasticum. I am looking forward to refreshing my memory of what Bar Hebraeus has to say in that volume, as it’s been years since I last consulted it. A lot of it, as I remember, was cribbed from Michael the Syrian, but there was a lot of original composition in his account of the thirteenth-century Jacobite patriarchs. He is such good fun when he is writing in his own persona rather than recycling the work of others.
Well it was your own interest that spurred me to do something about it, so the thanks are yours. And whatever you do translate of Bar Hebraeus will be a blessing. I confess you’re the first person to call Bar Hebraeus “fun” tho! But I can see how it might be so.
I hadn’t realised that a lot was cribbed from Michael. You know that the French translation of Michael is at Archive.org? I probably have a PDF of the Syriac somewhere as well.
I will get vol. 3 of Bar Hebraeus online in PDF as well, but we’ll see what Glasgow send me first.