#CD-ROM
6 messages in this thread
It's the whole (1928) version of the OED. OUP is supposedly coming out
with the 198? version lster this year. I have seen the current version for
$890 but I can't remember where. It may have been the Bureau of Electronic
Publishing.
Thank you Judy Dixon. I would like to have the newer edition of
the OED (they did publish a new edition in the late 1980's) A CD-ROM copy
of the wer edition would be worth $950 to me, but the 1928 version isn't
worth much at all. The paper copies, (many volumes of books) cost several
thousand dolars. And are beyond my budget.
I'm not exactly sure if the newest edition of the OED is dated late
1980's or early 1990's, but that is a long way from 1928. The language has
gone through a lot since then.
Allen. I have been wanting to OED on disk myself. My son called the
publisher of the OED in NY (just Oxford Pub I believe) and was told that a
new version on disk would be released around June-July. I have been waiting
to hear more. –Bill
R.E. the OED. That's good news then. Someone else in this forum
told me that the current disk has the 1928 edition. The 1928 edition (as
I've used it in the library,) is really two dictionaries. First, the main
body of material published in 1928, secondly a series of suplements
published since then. It would be really great to have the current
dictionary, (published just a year or two ago,) on disc, but for my money,
the 1928 edition isn't worth the $900 it would cost.
I'm constantly amazed that OUP has priced the OED so high for so long. When
the CDROM version first became available it was a new technology where many
reference products were priced high, but that is no longer the situation.
Using grants and other sources of money, OUP went completely electronic with
the OED a few years back — all the wealth of detail which they had stored in
paper files was transferred to computer files; I recall reading at the time
that the 70-odd years it took to "update" the 1928 edition was caused mainly
by the paper filing system and that the next (mid-90's?) edition would
require less than 10 years' work.
Given OUP's costs must have been dramatically reduced by going digital with
their storage, and that it will be much easier to go to a 2nd edition on
CDROM than it must have been to produce the first edition, one can only hope
the next disk (based I assume on the current, late 80's printed version) will
both appear soon and be priced a bit more realistically.
I suspect there would be a large market for the OED on ROM if it were list
priced under $500, and a very large market if it were under $200; as things
stand, the almost $1,000 price of the current version almost by default
limits it to institutional buyers such as colleges an and
Al. My kid just got the hardcover with all supplements in NY for $600. It
will arrive next week and I will read the dates and let you know. I recall
something in the NY Times book review in the last few years about it being
brought up to date. I thought that was by supplement but I will find out.
The $600 price was used but in excellent condition. Nelson Ford, on this
forum (71355,470) was selling the disks for around $890 as I recall. I am
going to leave a message asking him about the update version. That is as
good a price as I have heard. –Bill