Logos 10 review
Logo of Logos
I was a long term Accordance user. I built my library while I was at Bible College and was deeply committed. When I started teaching at Ridley College I made the switch so I could use the same tools our online students were provided with. Mostly I’ve never looked back.
Sitting on Logos 7 for a long time I took this opportunity to try out a beta of Logos 10. I received a preview copy of Logos 10 to prepare this review.
Print library
The biggest new feature from my point of view is the ability to add your print library to your Logos library.
One minor frustration for anyone with a hybrid print and digital library (which I take it is, basically, everyone) is not being able to see all your commentaries in the same place. It’s all too easy to accidentally purchase the same commentary twice simply because it’s currently at home, or in the office, or on loan to someone unreliable (I’m sure I had a copy of Oswalt’s Isaiah 1–39 somewhere…or am I imagining it?).
The ‘print books’ feature is an interesting attempt to bring everything within the Logos app. When you search full text it will include books that a) are available on Logos and b) you have indicated you own but c) you don’t own in Logos.
It doesn’t work everywhere (the passage guide on Isaiah 7, for example, didn’t show me that Oswalt was an option). But where it does work it is powerful - for example if I think of a quotation but can’t remember where it is from, I can search full text and it will tell me that those words come from a particular section (and page number) of Oswalt… though to actually look at that page I will have to get off my chair and actually pick the book from my shelf.
Search feature
The search feature has been tweaked to give a simpler experience and use a bit of computer brains to work out what you mean. This is good because searching on Logos previously often involved two steps: 1) googling how to do the search you need, then 2) actually searching Logos.
You can now specify keyword:value (rather than weird syntax with square and squiggly brackets).
For example the nasty old search:
<Lemma = lbs/el/λόγος> ANDEQUALS word
now becomes:
lemma:λόγος EQUALS word
Much better. There are also some quicker search options that I’ve found helpful, and they seem to have added in tags to lots of resources using an automatic indexing system. It did seem easier to find things quickly.
Other features
The design has been updated to have the main tools on the left. I like that there is now a ‘Bible’ button to quickly get up your favourite Bible.
You can now import all your sermons if that’s what you want. I haven’t done this, in fact as a matter of principle I strongly advise against keeping anything important in a proprietary database like Logos. It would be sad to lose access to your NICOT series, but losing all your sermons would be a tragedy. This happened to me in Microsoft OneNote with my PhD notes (it’s okay, I’ve gotten over it).
There is new ‘church history themes’ thing which would probably help my colleagues in that department more than me.
There is a new integration with automatic translation tools. So you can select the tricksy German in that dead German’s commentary and see roughly what it means.
Indexing has been sped up (hooray!) and there is support for Apple M series processors if that’s your platform.
Things that still could be better
The Logos atlas feature is still clunky and really relies on a series of static maps. For example, if I want to show a map of the tribal layouts, there is a man called ‘Israelite Tribal Inheritances’ but some of the main sites that I would want to show a class are missing, and the view is cluttered by lots of sites that are irrelevant. Accordance has had the ability to choose exactly which labels are shown on the map for years now.
Special offer - 30% off
If you click this link you will get up to 30% off a Logos package or upgrade and 5 free bonus books. (If you take this offer up I will also get a 10% commission to spend on my library so thanks for using the link.)