Brad Collins <brad@chenla.org> writes:
The OED is an example of this. Oxford has pumped a huge amount of money into the dictionary, but the dictionary has also been built with an enormous amount of volunteer help. There are no libraries anywhere near where I live in Bangkok with a copy of the OED which I can use. Since I don't have a credit card, I can't get access to the online edition even if I had the money to pay for it.
And I understand that despite how much it costs, it has never turned a profit in the history of its existance. Oxford keeps people working on it because of its importance, not as a profit making venture. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm
"D. Starner" <shalesller@writeme.com> writes:
Brad Collins <brad@chenla.org> writes:
The OED is an example of this. Oxford has pumped a huge amount of money into the dictionary, but the dictionary has also been built with an enormous amount of volunteer help. There are no libraries anywhere near where I live in Bangkok with a copy of the OED which I can use. Since I don't have a credit card, I can't get access to the online edition even if I had the money to pay for it.
And I understand that despite how much it costs, it has never turned a profit in the history of its existance. Oxford keeps people working on it because of its importance, not as a profit making venture.
Good point -- The bills have to be paid by _someone_. But does that factor in profits from other dictionaries like the COD (Concise Oxford Dictionary)? The OED is the baseline for all of the Oxford Dictionaries, just as Merriam Webster does with their unabridged third international and the rest. COD or the MW Collegiate would not be what they are without their monster unprofitable cousins. I read somewhere that the COD has been one of the top selling books in UK every year for quite some time (that could be wrong though). And it might well be that even with this other revenue the whole venture might still be short of a profit. But if they are working on it because of its importance and not for profit then why make it so expensive? They _want_ to make a profit from it and they are trying. Fair enough. If the OED is only available in institutions which can afford it, it will eventually be replaced by another, just as Britannica is loosing ground to Wikipedia. Wikipedia still has a ways to go (perhaps not in quantity but in quality) but the writing is on the wall. More than any other type of intellectual work, every dictionary and encyclopedia is built on the backs of those that come before it. And so it goes. b/ -- Brad Collins <brad@chenla.org>, Bangkok, Thailand
Brad Collins wrote:
Wikipedia still has a ways to go (perhaps not in quantity but in quality) but the writing is on the wall.
Renowned German computer magazine c't (issue 2004/21 pg. 132ff) tested following German encyclopaedias: - MS Encarta 2005 Professional (DVD) - Brockhaus 2005 Premium (DVD) - Wikipedia (internet) Wikipedia got the best score (3.6) for in the "contents" category. (Brockhaus: 3.3, Encarta 3.1) The "contents" test consisted in having domain specialists review 66 articles in 22 different subjects. This is only the German version of Wikipedia with 136,000 articles at the time of testing. English Wikipedia has now approx 400,000 articles. -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster@gutenberg.org
Speaking of the OED, Greg Newby and I were just discussing it a week or two ago, and he is willing to do the first few pages if anyone has access to an edition that correctly states the date of the first volume as 1888. . .just photocopy the title page/verso and the first couple pages and send to him, to get the ball rolling. Not ALL of the original OED is in the public domain in the U.S., by the way. . .only those volumes published before 1923: NEW DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE BASED ON HISTORICAL PRINCIPLES also known as "The Oxford English Dictionary" Copyright dates for the first edition are: V.1 : 1888 v.2 : 1893 v.3 : 1897 v.4 : 1901 v.5 : 1901 v.6 : 1908 v.7 : 1909 v.8 : 1914 v.9i : 1919 v.9ii : 1919 <<< Last Volume We Can Do In The US! v.10i : 1926 v.10ii : 1928 Supplement 1933 ******* The completion of each individual portion was as follows: [I am not sure if the copyright dates concur exactly] [This is something for the scholars and lawyers to fight about] AB-1888 C -1893 D -1897 E -1893 F- 1897 G- 1900 H- 1899 IJK-1901 M-1908 N-1907 O-1904 P-1909 Q-1902 R-RE-1905 RE-RY-1910 S-SH-1914 SI-SQ-1915 ST-1919 SU-SZ-1919 T-1915 U-1926 V-1920 W-WE-1923 WH-WO-1927 WO-WY-1927 XYZ-1921 Michael On Sat, 13 Nov 2004, Brad Collins wrote:
"D. Starner" <shalesller@writeme.com> writes:
Brad Collins <brad@chenla.org> writes:
The OED is an example of this. Oxford has pumped a huge amount of money into the dictionary, but the dictionary has also been built with an enormous amount of volunteer help. There are no libraries anywhere near where I live in Bangkok with a copy of the OED which I can use. Since I don't have a credit card, I can't get access to the online edition even if I had the money to pay for it.
And I understand that despite how much it costs, it has never turned a profit in the history of its existance. Oxford keeps people working on it because of its importance, not as a profit making venture.
Good point --
The bills have to be paid by _someone_. But does that factor in profits from other dictionaries like the COD (Concise Oxford Dictionary)? The OED is the baseline for all of the Oxford Dictionaries, just as Merriam Webster does with their unabridged third international and the rest.
COD or the MW Collegiate would not be what they are without their monster unprofitable cousins.
I read somewhere that the COD has been one of the top selling books in UK every year for quite some time (that could be wrong though). And it might well be that even with this other revenue the whole venture might still be short of a profit.
But if they are working on it because of its importance and not for profit then why make it so expensive? They _want_ to make a profit from it and they are trying. Fair enough.
If the OED is only available in institutions which can afford it, it will eventually be replaced by another, just as Britannica is loosing ground to Wikipedia.
Wikipedia still has a ways to go (perhaps not in quantity but in quality) but the writing is on the wall. More than any other type of intellectual work, every dictionary and encyclopedia is built on the backs of those that come before it.
And so it goes.
b/
-- Brad Collins <brad@chenla.org>, Bangkok, Thailand _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d
participants (4)
-
Brad Collins -
D. Starner -
Marcello Perathoner -
Michael Hart