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Oxford Dictionary Considers Going Online Only
Kilrah_il writes "Oxford University Press has confirmed that they are considering offering their next version of the Oxford English Dictionary as an online version only, with no option for a hardcopy. The 20-volume set, whose last edition (2nd) was published in 1989, weighs 145 pounds (65kg) and costs about $1,165. It is considered the 'accepted authority on the meaning and history of words.' In 2000, the dictionary was offered online for $295 a year and has been getting 2 million hits a month from subscribers. The printed version, on the other hand, has sales of only 30,000. Work is now progressing on the 3rd edition, but it's still a decade or more away from completion. Oxford University Press is considering going online-only with the next edition of their flagship product, but not for other products such as their best-selling Advanced Learner's Dictionary. At least for now."
I fully agree (only I'm a poor history major... so I may have to wait until the 4ed before I can afford a copy...)
Too bad production costs for a print run that small are huge. They're probably making unit profit on the hard copy somewhat close to what they're charging for the soft copy license. But there are a lot of fixed costs with the OED... editors, researchers, typesetting, etc. That thing's got a lot of pages!
Besides, you buy the hard copy, you keep it on your shelf for 20-25 years or so until the next edition comes out.
Instead, they get you @ $295/yr for 20 years assuming price doesn't change). Yes, you get easy access to updated content... but instead of spending $1165, you're spending around $6000 over that twenty-year period.
So instead of $35 million over 20 years, you're talking $165 million. Now THAT's getting close to a worthwhile sum of cash.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
The CD-ROM version is available for $215. They really ought to make it available for e-book readers.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
"Napkin" has other meanings, and it might just be worth saving your American self from embarrassment if you ever actually visit a hugely populated country where alternative meanings are regularly used. I can only imagine the looks might get when asking for a napkin.
It's rarely good to be ignorant.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
The Compact Edition (the two-volume version of the First edition or single-volume version of the Second edition which used even-smaller print) that come with a magnifier is not a deluxe edition. It is an inexpensive (compared to the regular, multivolume normal-print set), portable (again, compared to the regular, multivolume, normal-print set) reproduction of the regular set.
The OED is the perfect example of DEAD MEAT. Hopelessly fusty, out of date, and living in the past. They survive purely on snobbery.
It's a dictionary. How exactly would a dictionary "live in the future"? By making up its own definitions of words?
The OED is not like other dictionaries. If you're reading a book and you notice a word whose meaning you don't know, you probably don't go running off to the public library to consult the OED. Merriam-Webster will suffice. But if you want to know why a word means what it does, and since when, and who was the one to start using it in that way, and in what context, and how its meaning might have evolved over the years, then the OED is the source for you -- and probably the only source.
OED editors meticulously track down references for every definition included in the book, and they cite them: Shakespeare used this word in this way with this slightly-different spelling in this edition of this play in this year. That's what makes it the definitive reference to English words.
You can call that "snobbery" if you want. Some call it scholarship. If you think the two are the same, you're probably on the wrong site.
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