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In the first decade of its work (c. 1987-1997), my research group developed representative digital collections on Greco-Roman culture, including a substantial amount of original photography and documentation that remains intellectually significant today. For a full list of publications relevant to this work, see (External Link) . As digital photography, GPS and GIS systems, CAD, and other technologies became ubiquitous, we shifted our focus back to the textual record, but the early collections within Perseus remain large enough to illustrate the many challenges and to provide us with intellectual hooks through which to connect with other collections that have begun to emerge online. A new generation of digitally adroit scholars such as Thomas Elliott of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) at New York University, (External Link) . Bruce Hartzler of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, (External Link) . and Sebastian Heath of the American Numismatic Society (External Link) . have taken the lead in creating archaeological resources that are openly accessible and transparently interoperable.

To further this larger goal, my own group has for years collaborated with the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) and Arachne, (External Link) . the Cologne-based central object-database of the DAI. (External Link) . We have exchanged extended visits between members of our teams and numerous visits between Boston and Berlin. For us, integrating the collections within Perseus with this much larger and growing library of archaeological data is a very high priority. Some initial work on this ongoing project has been reported in Kummer 2006 and Babeu et al. 2007. Perseus contains extensive information about thousands of objects and tens of thousands of images—much smaller holdings than those in Arachne but large enough to offer a bridge not just between our collections but between increasing archaeological holdings and increasingly sophisticated infrastructure for the textual record.

Study of the Greco-Roman world not only includes the full textual and material record but also the cultures from which it emerged (e.g., the influence of Near Eastern and Egyptian culture), with which it interacted (e.g., Persia, India, and even China), and to those whose cultural heritage it directly contributed (e.g., not only the West but the vast cultural swath from Rabat on the Atlantic to Kandahar, one of the Alexandrias that Alexander founded).

There are practical consequences to integrating both the textual and material records from many different cultures. Indeed, simply integrating several disparate textual and material collections within one domain, such as classics, can be very challenging, as explained by Jackson et al. 2009. We need to be serious about interoperability and not simply endorse it in the abstract. Interoperability involves face-to-face meetings and conversations, learning about the varying needs and opportunities of disparate communities, of pushing beyond surface difference to commonalities that are not at all obvious. It also means taking the time to understand very different scholarly cultures and even supporting the development of linguistic training—we need classicists proficient in Mandarin and Arabic as well as English, French, German, and Italian.