Research: An Biobla Naomhtha

I do a fair bit of research to write what I write, so I thought maybe I'd start sharing a bit of it. There's no theme to this, and I don't know how helpful it will be, but damnit, I'd be remiss not to share the bounty of the internet (especially its less-tread quarters) with you!

So without further ado...

An Biobla Naomhtha, the holy (Christian) bible in Irish Gaelic!

You know, just in case.

(Can you believe I actually needed this resource? My world. It is a hurricane of mad brilliance.)

Here's some cool things you might not know about Google Books, while we're on the subject. Notice how the book I linked is kind of a cruddy scan? Looks a bit like a captcha? Well, let's say I need a verse from it; how about Genesis 1:2 for simplicity: "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light." So what if I wanted to take that same verse from An Biobla Naomhtha without painstakingly switching windows back and forth to copy out each letter? Like say, if I wanted to do this?




If you look at the top right hand corner of the book window (not quite up to where you'll see your own username sign in), you'll see a couple of ways of interacting with this text. I used the "clip" button to get that section of text. Select around it, and voila, it makes an image of that section of text for you. Of course, it's not quite as useful as being able to copy and paste the normal way, since the selection for the clip function is limited to a rectangle or square, but it is useful for pages that don't have copy and paste functionality.

But what if I didn't want to use an image, say I was using the quote in-line in a stor? (Not that I am or anything, cough!) Well, once you clip the text a pop-up window will appear that gives you several options on what to do with your selection. The first is a window out of which you can copy and paste the text you selected, say to paste into this blog, the second creates an image (as seen above), and the third spits out some html for you that creates and image AND hyperlinks it to the source. Neat! (And man do I wish this was a readily available feature in all books, especially back when I was doing my undergrad!)

One word of caution, though. The above text turns into the following:

3 Açus do bhi an talamh gan fhoirm ages iolamh agus do bhi dorcliadus ar tNoub an aiätin Agus do chorruigh tpx rad Dé ar aghaidh na nuisgeadh

Notice any differences? Yeah, a few, largely in the arena of punctuation, although a couple of letters get borked, too. So double check what you end up pasting before you send it out into the world, just like you would were you typing it out by hand (like I had to during my undergrad).


Found any other cool books (research-related or otherwise) for free on Google Books? Got some guesses as to why the hell I'm looking for Irish Gaelic translations of bible verses? Let's hear it in the comments!