R.I.P the humble paper dictionary, owned by all school children, used by none. Despite a team of 80 lexicographers that have been working on the third edition of the OED for the past 21 years, Oxford University Press has said that its website is so successful that it’s not sure “whether the 126-year-old dictionary’s next edition will be printed on paper at all,”
The online version of the Oxford English Dictionary gets 2 million hits a month from subscribers in the US ($295 a year)
Whilst the current 20-volume printed edition comes at $1,165 and has sold about 30,000 sets in total.
The OED said “At present we are experiencing increasing demand for the online product,” “However, a print version will certainly be considered if there is sufficient demand at the time of publication.”
Nigel Portwood, chief executive of Oxford University Press (OUP) said “The print dictionary market is just disappearing. It is falling away by tens of percent a year,”
But there's still hope though, apparently “It is likely to be more than a decade before the full edition is published and a decision on format will be taken at that point,”
“Demand for online resources is growing but large numbers of people continue to purchase dictionaries in printed form and we have no plans to stop publishing print dictionaries.”
Things look bad for the 3rd edition solid dictionary and the team of 80 who are all now probably on suicide watch, but it's only a sign of the times. It is much easier to carry a laptop or smartphone than 20 heavy hardback books, but they may still live on as ornamental pieces. No self respecting study is complete without the entire OED on top of the bookshelf.
Source: pocketlint
One thought on “The internet kills off the paper version of OED”
i have been starting to think about this now and I realise that I don’t use my dictionaries at all! They are just tucked away in my cupboard! All the words I look up are in Google!