Here's news about the first dictionary totally created in the computer and
Internet age.  Incidentally, the American heritage dictionary is available
for the blind and the webster's dictionary is available online.

kelly

from the Financial Times
 NATIONAL NEWS:
  15 Mar 99
Uniting a world divided by a common language: Encarta dictionary
seeks to           reflect English as spoken worldwide, writes
Alice Rawsthorn.

   By ALICE RAWSTHORN
Every evening, e-mails flood into an office on St Anne's Court in
London's Soho from an assortment of people ranging from a mother
of twins in the Orkney Islands to the owner of an East Coast
meditation centre. The twins' mum and the meditation mogul are
among nearly 300 lexicographers, etymologists and other experts
involved in the compilation of the Encarta World English
Dictionary, a new dictionary to be launched this summer as a
joint venture between Microsoft and Bloomsbury, the London book
publisher. The Encarta represents a dramatic departure for
Bloomsbury, which is best known for fiction - from Michael
Ondaatje's novels to the Harry Potter children's stories - and
has never before produced a dictionary. It will also set a wider
precedent, when it is launched this August as a Bloomsbury book
and Microsoft CD-Rom, by being the first dictionary ever to be
compiled and published electronically.
"Because the experience of looking up a word on screen is so
different from reading it on a page, we've had to rethink every
aspect of what people want from a dictionary, including how to
compile it," says Kathy Rooney, publishing director of reference
books and electronic media at Bloomsbury. The project started in
1991 when Bloomsbury wrote to Bill Gates, Microsoft's founder, to
suggest they collaborate on an electronic dictionary to reflect
the different ways English is spoken worldwide, rather than the
anglocentric Oxford English Dictionary, or US versions such as
the Heritage Dictionary of American English.
It was an opportunistic approach, as the two companies had no
previous links. But Microsoft was eager to develop its own
content for electronic publishing products, such as its hugely
successful Encarta World Encyclopedia, and in 1995 they signed a
formal agreement to jointly produce the Encarta World English
Dictionary.
Bloomsbury is responsible for compiling the Encarta, which will
be published as a book and CD-Rom in two versions: one for North
America and one for other English-speaking countries, such as the
UK, Australia and South Africa.
Rather than adopt the old-fashioned approach whereby researchers
and academics wrote out definitions by hand on index cards,
Bloomsbury set up a worldwide network of 120 lexicographers and
etymologists, together with 150 specialists in subjects such as
botany or heraldry. They communicate by e-mail with each other,
and with the 30-strong project management team at St Anne's
Court.
"By communicating electronically, you can draw on a far wider
talent pool than if everyone has to be physically in the same
place," explains Ms Rooney.
One benefit of publishing on CD-Rom is that it is free from the
space constraints of conventional books, which enables the
Encarta to include more entries and information than most other
dictionaries. Both the 2,200 page book and CD-Rom will contain
90,000 entries on words, and 10,000 biographical or geographical
ones.
Each entry has a brief "flash" definition, and a longer one. Some
3,000 words are accompanied by illustrations. "It's much easier
to define 'ellipse', for example, with a picture than words,"
says Ms Rooney. Bloomsbury has introduced a method of explaining
pronunciation, developed by John Wells, professor of phonetics at
University College London. "It spells out the word as it is
spoken, rather than looking like hieroglyphics which only trained
phoneticians can understand," says Ms Rooney.
The compilers are now completing final checks before the
dictionary is printed in the US. Some 500,000 copies of the book
will be printed in the first run, 350,000 of which have already
been ordered by booksellers. It will retail at Pounds 30 in the
UK.
By 2010, Bloomsbury expects to generate Pounds 40m in sales and
royalty income from its share of the Encarta project. It hopes to
sell 500,000 copies of the book in year one, and 330,000 in each
of years two and three. Sales are then expected to rise to
500,000 again in the fourth year, when another stream of e-mails
from the Orkney Islands and East Coast will have relayed
additions and amendments for the second edition.
 Companies:  BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING PLC (26800). MICROSOFT CORPN
(11076).  Countries:  GB United Kingdom, EC. US United States of
America.  Industry:   P2731 Book Publishing.
             P7372 Prepackaged Software.
 Actuary:    Media, Publishing. Support Services, Information
Technology.  Subject:    Media - Publishing. Products & Product
Use Strategic Links &              Joint Ventures.
 Types:      Stories.
 MCC Type:   TECH  Products & product use.

The Financial Times
Page 8
Copyright (C) The Financial Times Ltd, 1997


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