In 1996 we began work, with an NEH grant and local private support. To the user, the technical structure will be invisible except for the line in the browser showing the URL one is currently visiting. The user's view, instead, will be of an informative interface, offering many different routes into the material. A student writing on taxation could search for appropriate terms. At any point one will be able to move from text to translation to image to bibliography, whether to follow up a discovery with similar texts or to check the image and see if the editor read the papyrus correctly.
Much work lies ahead.
Associate Curator Raffaella Cribiore is creating the catalogue papyrus by papyrus, ostracon by ostracon, with the help of consultants in Arabic and Coptic. Information systems technicians are coordinating the data-storage standards of multiple institutions, a challenging step needed to bring the concept of a distributed virtual library to fruition. APIS will open this immense body of information to those who do not know the ancient languages and have not been trained in the arcana of papyrology. He has led APIS as president of the American Society of Papyrologists.