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Robert Musil (1880-1942), the Austrian utopian novelist and essayist, wrote two unsuccessful plays, two novels, one, The Man Without Qualities, unfinished, and many shorter works. Since his death, work has progressed in collecting and editing his literary remains. In 1990, a group of scholars at the Klagenfurt University School of Education, in Musil's home town, began, with the help of the Finanzierung des Fonds zur Förderung wissenschaftlicher Forschung in Österreich (the Fund for the Advancement of Scholarly Research in Austria) to develop software for text retrieval from fulltext databases using personal computers. The result of this work is PEP (Das Philologische Erschliessungsprogramm für die Transkription und Dokumentation des Nachlass von Robert Musil. The linguistic selection program for the transcription and documentation of the literary remains of Robert Musil. The acronym is extracted from Philologische ErschliessungsProgramm.)
The textbase reproduces the literary remains of Robert Musil in two planes: the transcription of the collected manuscripts is a precise rendering of each individual sheet of the manuscript; the accompanying information about the physical composition and state of the Musil manuscripts is a precise description of each document including such items as the type and composition of the paper, the kind of writing implement and color of the writing, the author and the published source. An intermediate result of the selection process of is a list of manuscripts with references to each edition.
The program offers multi-faceted (flexible) possibilities of combining and then searching the contents and accompanying information about the state of the Musil manuscripts.
To access Musil, you need to go to the Start menu on any of the Windows NT machines at LETRS. Select LETRS ELECTRONIC TEXTS. A new window will appear with a desktop view of the server. In the new window, go again to the Start menu and select Electonic Texts. Then choose Musil from the sub-menu.
Once you select the program you will see a title screen with credits and a psychadelic PEP in the middle. Press any key to access the main screen. On that screen you will find a menu bar across the top with six menu headings: Datei, Referenzliste, Lesen, Recherche, Drucken, Optionen. Throughout this QuickGuide, references to choices on the screen will be entered in German so you will be able to find them; explanations of the functions will be in English and a glossary is available. (The interface is entirely in German.)
To search or read any text from the textbase, you must first select documents from it; the texts you select will make up your Referenzliste. Referenzlisten may be edited, saved or restored by using the Referenzliste menu. You may select all the texts in the base, but you should remember that a search of the full textbase can easily take seven minutes or more, maybe much more. To select the texts for your Referenzliste, select the Datei menu (click on the menu with the left mouse button or press Alt-D) and then Auswahl ( point and press the left mouse button or press [Rtn] because it is already highlighted or press "a"); this will open the first level of a two level selection window.
The first level allows you to choose one or more of the Mappengruppen (these are groups of portfolios). You may highlight all of them by clicking with the left mouse button on the first line or highlight them one at a time using the other lines. To remove the highlight from a line, point with the mouse and click with the right mouse button. Or you may use the arrow keys to point to a line and the [Ins] and [Del] keys to highlight or unhighlight it respectively. The Kaiser/Wilkins pagination forms the foundation for the organization of textual material in the database. Robert Musil's literary remains were arranged by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins into eight Mappengruppen (directories), 63 Mappen (files) and about 8000 manuscript pages. The diary-copy books are arranged in this scheme in a separate Mappengruppe. For a few parts of the remains (copies, catalogue books, cigarette note books . . .) a separate ninth directory was created. In all, the remains consist of 12,048 pages. Of those, 11,686 pages are included in this edition. 362 pages in four portfolios with drafts of letters, which are published in the Letters of Adolf Frisé, are not included here.
To open the second level, which allows you to select individual Mappen (portfolios) click on a highlighted line in the first level window (or double click on an unhighlighted one, simultaneously highlighting it and opening the subsidiary window). To open the second level using the keyboard, place the cursor on a line and press [Ins] to highlight it and again [Ins] to open the subsidiary window (this is very logical in that it mirrors the use of the left mouse button precisely).
The second level allows you to select all the Mappen of a given Mappengruppe by selecting the first line, or an individual Mappe using subsequent lines. To return to the higher level window, press [Esc] or point to the higher level window with the mouse and click with the right mouse button. Using the right mouse button will have no effect unless the arrow is in the higher level window (at that time a message appears at the bottom of the screen) and using the left mouse button will not get you back to the higher level window no matter where you point. You will be able to choose individual manuscript pages when you edit the Referenzliste.
At any time, while you are working in either of the Datei/Auswahl windows, if you have selected one or more Mappe, pressing return or clicking on the graphic button labeled "Enter" Referenzliste erzeugen (compile search list) will exit the whole selection process and prepare a Referenzliste of all the Mappen that were highlighted when you exited. Using the Datei/Auswahl menus you may select: the whole literary remains, one directory, additional directories, one portfolio of one directory, additional portfolios of one directory, additional portfolios of various directories.
It is recommended that you select only one or a few portfolios when you want to retrieve information about given subject. Each restriction of the domain shortens the search time and simplifies the result.
Use the left mouse button, or "Ins" key, to select a Mappengruppe and the right mouse button, or "Del" key to deselect it. You may double click with the left button, or "Ins" key, to refine your selection by choosing one or more Mappen (portfolios) from the Mappengruppe. When you do this another selection window opens to allow you to make the selection. The selection process is the same as for the Mappengruppen.
Important: to quit the Mappen window, use the "Esc" key or click the right mouse button while pointing to the Mappengruppen window. (When you do point to the Mappengruppen window, a message appears at the bottom of the screen saying: back to the choice of Mappengruppen: click on this entry with the right mouse button. The line at the bottom of the screen seems to indicate the effect of the mouse at any given time. When the mouse is turned off, there is no message there.)
Once you have selected a number of Mappen and compiled them into a Referenzliste, you may proceed to search for words that interest you, or you may refine your Referenzliste. To refine your Referenzliste choose "Referenzliste" from the menu bar or type "r"; a pop-down menu will appear with five items to choose from:
To save your list, choose Speichern from the Referenzliste menu. You will see a window with the title "Referenzliste speichern" containing two lines Dateipfad (path) and Dateiname (filename) and two graphic buttons labeled "F4", "Ausführen" (continue) and "Esc", "Beenden" (quit). There is a small data entry area after Dateiname to enter the name of the file you wish to use to store your list. Using the up and down arrow keys, or the mouse, you may move from the Dateiname line to the Dateipfad line, even though this is not apparent at first glance. "F4", "Ausführen" will save your file, "Esc", Beenden will abort the process.
Laden oder Löschen will allow you to load or delete saved files of Referenzliste. Letzte zurückholen and Vorletzte zurückholen allow you to retrieve recently active lists quickly.
The next menu: Lesen will allow you to read the text or description of the selected manuscript pages. It has two items: Text and Seitendocumentation (page description). Text will display the transcribed text from the page, Seitendocumentation shows a formal description of the composition and condition of that page. Either window has a menu button in the top left hand corner; click on it or type [Alt-X] to open the menu. From a page of transcription the following menu opens:
The bolded characters indicate the key that will invoke the menu item, if you wish to use the keyboard instead of the mouse. While the menu is popped down, they will work only if you press that key and no other. When the menu is closed, you may invoke the item by pressing [Alt] and the indicated key; this possibility is indicated by the "Alt- " entry on the right hand side of each line of the menu. From a screen of page description the following window opens:
Note: You may switch from reading the text to reading the page description or vice versa using these menus or the associated keys, but if you do, the menu changes in two ways:
The Recherche menu has two entries: Volltextsuche and Kombinierte Suche. Volltextsuche allows you to perform a simple search of the transcribed text of the manuscript; Kombinierte Suche performs a power search of both the text and the page description using normalized indices and marked up fields. There are words, such as adverbs, pronouns and numbers, for which you may not search using Kombinierte Suche, because they are not in any of the indices, but you may only search for single strings with Volltextsuche. With Kombinierte Suche, you may search for the author, type of paper, writing instrument, publication, dating, as well as tropes, references concepts, verbs, nouns and adjectives. The manual points out that Kombinierte Suchen are quick but uneven; words may have been left out of the indices or misentered.
The result of each search, of either type, is a number of pages together with their descriptions containing the search terms. After a Volltextsuche, the lines containing instances of the search terms are marked with a right-pointing triangle in the left hand margin and the first instance on each manuscript page will be aligned with the top of the screen when you shift to that page; to find the next mark, and consequently the next hit on that page, use [Alt-M] or the mouse. You may press [Alt-S] (or use the mouse) to select the search function and then enter a search term to find something else on the pages in your Referenzliste. Such a search will change the marks on every page of your list. If you page to a new page the first line will contain the first hit, just as it would have for the original search. If you page to a new page that has no hit, you will see a pop up window stating: "Keine Fundstelle auf dieser Seite" (no hit on this page). Each time you want to make a new search, you must enter your search term, as the program clears the field each time you invoke it. The Kombinierte Suche will search footnotes as well as the page description which the Volltextsuche and the local search will not do. Interestingly, the Kombinierte Suche will not find Blaustift (blue pencil) in the page description if you enter blau as an adjective, but it will find it in a footnote where several writing implements are used and the usage is recorded in footnotes.
Note that while the Volltextsuche will not allow compound searches, the fact that the result of each search is a new Referenzliste, including only pages with hits from the previous search, will allow you to refine your search in very complicated ways and to combine the results of both kinds of searches. You may also edit the Referenzliste directly, in case you want to eliminate one or more pages from your list. It is not possible to add pages to a list; the result of both editing and searching is to delete pages from the existing list. The result of any use of the database is a Referenzliste of manuscript pages.
The Volltextsuche search engine allows various forms of truncation and wildcards. By default, searches are case sensitive. To search for a string of characters type the characters and press enter. To search for a word, precede and follow the word with spaces to prevent the search string being found embedded in a longer word. For example, if you search for "blau""Ablauf" among your hits. If, on the other hand, you were to search for " blau ", you would only find blau.
You may link two or more search criteria and terms with "und" (and), "oder" (or) and "nicht" (not). The or is inclusive, meaning that a search for "A" oder "B" will find a page with either "A" or "B" or "A" and "B".
[Ctrl-b] is the wild card to replace a single character and [Ctrl-w] is the wild card to replace any character or string of characters; so " [Ctrl-b]istorisch" (note the space at the beginning) will find words that start with "Historisch" or "historisch" (or any other initial letter, if such a word is to be found in the literary remains) and would return "historischen" as well as "Historisch". Similarly "[Ctrl-b]roblem" will search for any word with "roblem" in it. To accommodate abbreviations of names, for example, you could enter "[Spc]Ag[Ctrl-w][Spc]sagte" to find "Agathe sagte" or "Ag. sagte" or "Ag sagte". ("Strg-b" is the German indication for [Ctrl-b] and is displayed along with "Strg-w" and "Strg-v" at the bottom of the screen to remind you when entering a wild card is appropriate. "[Spc]" represents a space.)
[Ctrl-v] may be used to limit the distance between two search terms. The distance is measured in lines, so that "Brief[Ctrl-v]3[Ctrl-v]Vater" will search for "Brief" (letter) and then verify that "Vater" (father) is to be found in the following three lines. It is possible to enter a negative number in-between two [Ctrl-v]s, and it seems to look for the second term before the first.
[Alt-X] where "X" is a number from 0 to 255 will enter the extended IBM character that corresponds to that decimal number. Thus [Alt-229] will enter a Greek lower case sigma.
You may use mark-up codes in your search, thus: "::Beilage" will search for "Beilage" at the beginning of a marginal note.
You may include text attributes (underlining, superscript, subscript, double underlining, and Musil's notation for emphasis). "@1" and "@2" denote the beginning and ending of underlining. "@3" and "@4" denote the beginning and ending of superscript. "@5" and "@6" denote the beginning and ending of subscript. "@7" and "@8" denote the beginning and ending of double underlining. "@9" and "@0" denote the beginning and ending of Musil's emphasis. In that way, to use the example given in the manual, you could search for the underlined chapter heading "34" by entering "@134@2".
Enter a date in the "TAQN" field to limit your search to manuscript pages after that date. Musil encodes dates in an efficient year-month-day format so that "30" will include dates from the beginning of 1930, "3006" will include dates from the beginning of June 1930 and 300701 will include dates from the first of July 1930.
Enter a date in the "TPQN" field to limit your search to manuscript pages before that date. You may enter dates in both the TAQN and TPQN, fields which will limit your search to the dates between the two values. If you enter the same year, month or day in both fields, your search will be limited to that year, month or day.
The Kennung field tries to normalize Musil's coding of various features of the manuscripts. Page references are usually multi-part, and the use of this field to search is explained in 5.2.2.3, page 55 of the manual (call number: PT2625.U85A6 1992 manual.)
Name, Figur, Verweis, Begriff, Verb and Adjektiv (name, characters, reference, concept, verb and adjective) are fields that allow fast searching using pre-established indices. Name denotes geographic place names, historical and contemporary persons, and literary characters who do not come from the work of Musil. Figur denotes the names of persons introduced in Musil's work; the search form is the simplest unabbreviated meaningful form of the name. Verweis denotes references to specific manuscripts; Musil's complicated reference coding system has been standardized to facilitate the use of meaningful search terms. Begriff denotes generally substantive nouns; the nominative singular form should be entered as the search term. For nominalized adjectives and verbs (participles) you should enter the root word (adjective or verb). Verb will look for the various forms of verbs whose infinitive is entered. Adjektiv will allow searching for declined adjectives, comparatives, superlatives and adverbal adjectival forms.
The organization of the literary remains is quite complicated, and the structured search possibilities are vast. Using the Kombinierte Suche allows you to reference the page description as well as the normalized indices which are described at length in the user's reference manual.
Once you have completed your search, you must select the Lesen menu and then Texte or Seitendokumentation to read the results. After a search your Referenzliste will contain only those pages which contain the terms and match the criteria from your previous search, the others will have been deleted. You may further refine your list by performing another search, or save it using the Referenzliste menu. If you want to start over after an abortive search, use the Letzte zurückholen (previous choice) entry in the Referenzliste menu. This may sometimes be confusing, as there is no indication of which list you are using. If you make two successive abortive searches, you may use Vorletzte zurückholen (next to last choice) to go back to the original. It is possible to execute the Vorletzte zurückholen command twice to go back further than the next-to-last list.
Drucken is the name of the printing menu. Under Drucken you will find four choices: Texte, Seitendokumentation, Texte und Seitendokumentation, and Referenzliste, which will initiate printing of the transcribed text, the page description or both, or the search list. Choosing any one of these entries will open a window with a line of text at the top, followed by a line containing a number, followed by the word Seiten; these lines advise you of the number of manuscript pages in your Referenzliste which will be printed. The next line tells you to load paper and put the printer on line. The box to the lower left labeled "Enter" will cause the list to be printed; the one to the lower right labeled "Esc" will abort the printing process.
Note: at the present time, printing actually happens only when you exit Musil, so please do not try it several times. Also note that the Musil archive is quite large and it is easy to ask it to print hundreds of manuscript pages which may take up several letter-sized pages each. Please limit your printing at first, and only print what you really will use.
The Optionen menu has three entries: Maus: ein/aus, Systemkonfiguration and Fensterfarben ändern. Maus: will be followed by either "ein" or "aus" depending on whether the mouse is enabled (ein) or disabled (aus). Click on the entry to toggle the function. Systemkonfiguration means system configuration, and Fensterfarben ändern serves to change the colors.
There is a comprehensive manual explaining the Musil databank, written in German, available in the LETRS Documentation Collection (call number: PT2625.U85A6 1992 manual).
In addition to the manual, Musil supplies an abbreviated user documentation in the last line of the screen. The information is placed on the chosen position on the screen. [The documentation depends on the position of the cursor on the screen.] The user will be informed whether a command for example a search is run successfully or not, by a message in a message window. User errors will be signaled in the same way.
In preparing this list we have tried to locate the terms in a standard computer dictionary or a general German-English dictionary. Some meanings have been derived from the context of the Musil database and may not be translated precisely.
<-| ("Enter" key) confirms a choice
< > (arrow keys) horizontal movement keys
^ v (arrow keys) vertical movement keys
anklicken click (mouse)
ausführen continue
Auswahl selection, option, choice
Auswahlbildschirm option screen
Auswahlfelder selection fields
Auswahlfenster selection window
bearbeiten compile, edit
Bedienung command
Bedienungsanleitung command documentation
Bedienungsfehler command (entry) error
Beispiel example
Benutzer user
Bereich area, domain, range, entry
Bild picture, the contents of the text window
Bildschirm screen
Bildschirmfarben screen colors
blättern page verb
Briefkonzepte letter drafts
Datei file, data
Dateiname filename
Dateipfad path
Drucken print, press (a key)
eine Mappe einer Mappengruppe one portfolio of one directory
eine Mappengruppe one directory
EINF (abbr. of Einfügetaste) insert key. Also to mark for
selection or deletion etc.
Einfügetaste insert key
Einschränkung restriction
Empfehlung recommendation
Ende close
ENTF delete key. Also, to unmark for selection or deletion etc.
erfahren fail
erfolgreich successful
erfolglos unsuccessful
Ergebnis amount, count, result
erläutern explain, illustrate
Erschliessungsbereich selection domain, chosen entry/document
Erschliessungsschritte selection process
erschlossen opened
ESC Escape key. To undo a selection
Evidenz safety, backup
Farbe color
Fensterfarben window colors
fertig ready, done
festlegen determine
Funktionstasten function keys
gelöscht deleted
gemeinsam together
geordnet arranged
gesamter Nachlass the whole literary remains database
Hefte notebooks
Hilfe help
hinsichtlich concerning
Information über PEP information about the production of data and program development
KW pagination scheme of Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins
Kombinierte Suche Combination search of several pre-determined fields
laden load
lesen get, read
Letzte last
Letzte zurückholen previous choice
löschen clear, delete, erase, kill
Löschtaste delete key
Mappe portfolio, file
Mappengruppe directory
Maus Aus/Ein to turn the mouse functions on and off
Mausbedienung use of the mouse
mehrere Mappen einer Mappengruppe several portfolios of one directory
mehrere Mappen verscheidener Mappengruppen several portfolios of various directories
mehrere Mappengrüppe several directories
Meldungsfenster message window
Menuleiste menu bar
Nachlass literary remains
nächste Seite next page
Optionen options
Paginierung pagination (follows KW)
Pfeiltasten arrow keys
Programm beenden quit the program
Recherche search
Referenzliste reference list
Referenzliste erzeugen compile search list
Seite manuscript page
Seitendokumentation page documentation
Seitendokumentationbildschirm page documentation screen
Speichern memory, storage
Standardeinstellungen default options
Strg (abbr.) Ctrl (control) key
Systemkonfiguration system configuration
Tagebuch diary
Tastatur keyboard
Taste key
Tastenanschlag key stroke
Textbildschirm text screen
Überblick overview
Übersicht reference, summary
umfasst contains
Volltextsuche full text search
vorhergehende Seite previous page
Vorletzte zurückholen next to last choice
Zeichen character
Zeichenfolge sequence of characters
zu DOS temporary switch from the Musil
database to the DOS operating system, for
example to copy data; return
by typing "Exit"
zurück back
zurückholen recall
<-| ("Enter" key) confirms a choice
< > (arrow keys) horizontal movement keys
^ v (arrow keys) vertical movement keys
arrow keys Pfeiltasten
back zurück
choice Auswahl
clear löschen
click (mouse) anklicken
close Ende
command Bedienung
command (entry) error Bedienungsfehler
compile bearbeiten
compile search list Referenzliste erzeugen
continue ausführen
Ctrl (control) key Strg (abbr.)
data Datei
default options Standardeinstellungen
delete löschen
delete key ENTF (abbr.), Löschtaste
deleted gelöscht
determine festlegen
diary Tagebuch
done fertig
edit bearbeiten
entry Bereich
erase löschen
explain erläutern
fail erfahren
filename Dateiname
full text search Volltextsuche
function keys Funktionstasten
help Hilfe
illustrate elaütern
insert key EINF (abbr.), Einfügetaste
key Taste
key stroke Tastenanschlag
keyboard Tastatur
last Letzte
letter drafts Briefkonzepte
literary remains Nachlass
load laden
menu bar Menüleiste
message window Meldungsfenster
mouse Maus
next page nächste Seite
next to last choice Vorletzte zurückholen
opened erschlossen
option screen Auswahlbildschirm
options Optionen
overview Überblick
page documentation Seitendokumentation
pagination Paginierung
path Dateipfad
previous choice Letzte zurückholen
previous page vorhergehende Seite
print Drucken
quit Programm beenden
read lesen
ready fertig
recommendation Empfehlung
reference list Referenzliste
restriction Einschränkung
result Ergebnis
safety, backup Evidenz
screen Bildschirm
screen colors Bildschirmfarben
search Recherche
selection Auswahl
selection domain Erschliessungsbereich
selection fields Auswahlfelder
selection process Erschliessungsschritte
selection window Auswahlfenster
storage Speichern
successful erfolgreich
summary Übersicht
system configuration Systemkonfiguration
text screen Testbildschirm
unsuccessful erfolglos
user Benutzer
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