Editorial

Citation

Chalcraft, A. (2006), "Editorial", Reference Reviews, Vol. 20 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/rr.2006.09920caa.001

Editorial

Over the last ten or so numbers of Reference Reviews we have reviewed many of the single-volume English language dictionaries currently available in the UK (Chambers Concise Dictionary (RR 2005/143); Collins English Dictionary (RR 2005/428); Concise Oxford English Dictionary (RR 2005/32); Webster’s New World College Dictionary (RR 2005/419)). In this issue we take a look, again through the sharp eyes of Bob Duckett who contributed all the previous reviews, at a further title the revised edition of a relative newcomer, the Bloomsbury Concise English Dictionary (RR 2006/144). Available from A&C Black (this imprint now publishes Bloomsbury reference titles, A&C Black being a subsidiary of the Bloomsbury Group) and selling at the very reasonable price of £19.99 this, like its rivals, is as likely to feature on the shelves of bookshops as libraries.

A dictionary unlikely to feature on the shelves of most bookstores however (although I did once see a set precariously perched on a top shelf in a large book retailer), is the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The OED is, of course, a dictionary on historical principles, and therefore a rather different beast to titles such as the Bloomsbury. It is not just a reference work but an institution and a vital part of the English language and the culture of English-speaking countries. It might not have the utility of some of the single-volume English dictionaries, but it is an essential reference work that has long deserved a more prominent place in the public consciousness.

Thanks to BBC television, this is just what the OED is getting. Previously in this editorial column (Reference Reviews Vol. 18 No. 3) we noted how the history of the OED had been the subject of a 50-minute programme (British Broadcasting Corporation, 2003). Now the dictionary is receiving even lengthier television exposure. The day before writing this column I had the rare pleasure of sitting down to watch the first in a series of hour-long programmes constructed around the OED. In Balderdash & Piffle the BBC is broadcasting a series about the derivation of different words and phrases united by a common initial letter (there is also an accompanying book (Games, 2006)). In the first programme, and the only one broadcast at the time of writing, the letter was “P”. The basic concept is that the presenter, the rather annoying Victoria Coren who seems inseparable form her bright yellow Mini car, investigates the derivation of a word or phrase, with the aid of a requisite celebrity, to see whether the OED entry can be re-worked. Coren scoots about, in her car wherever possible, and with contributions from celebrity sidekicks (including in the first programme Clarissa Dickson-Wright who succeeds only in terrifying pigs by squelching around in very ungainly fashion on a quad-bike) attempting to establish whether the first OED recorded use of a word or phrase can be extended further back in time. On each occasion she presents her evidence to a suitably stern and scholarly looking set of Oxford University Press personnel headed by OED Chief Editor John Simpson. In the first programme, in all but one case she fails to convince the very sceptical looking team that her investigations can be substantiated through documentary evidence. However, in the case of “Ploughman’s lunch”, she is able, with the help of the son of a former chief of the Milk Marketing Board and documentary evidence from the Dairy Council archive, to convince the team the term did not originate in 1970 as previously recorded by OED, but in 1964 when it was concocted as a means of selling more cheese.

Although popularised for television, this is a useful programme that puts the OED at centre-stage. It remains to be seen how the other episodes will play, but I for one am certainly hooked and will be having rare further sit downs in front of the television to view the remainder of the series. Here, however, I had better get back to where we started, looking at this issue of Reference Reviews. Dictionaries feature somewhat more prominently than usual (encyclopaedias more commonly outnumber them two to one) but here we have dictionaries of Sufism (RR 2006/127), Christianity (RR 2006/128), international law (RR 2006/135), idioms (RR 2006/148), gems and gemmology (RR 2006/152), railways (RR 2006/156), medical Spanish (RR 2006/158), leisure, travel and tourism (RR 2006/165) and world history (RR 2006/167). We still have plenty of encyclopaedias, albeit not in quite the dominating numbers of some previous issues. The most substantial of these is the second edition of Elsevier’s Encyclopedia of Human Nutrition (RR 2006/153), probably the most comprehensive reference work on the subject. Also notable is the Encycopedia of Literature and Politics from Greenwood, the latest edition of that chemistry standard Van Nostrand’s Encyclopedia of Chemistry (RR 2006/159) and the unusual, and scaling new ground, Mountain Encyclopedia (RR 2006/166) from Rowman & Littlefield/Scarecrow Press.

As always, we have tried to review a mix of subscription and freely available electronic sources. Women, War and Society 1914-1918 (RR 2006/140) is a one of Thomson Gale’s continuing series of innovative electronic products. Based on the Women at Work collection of the Imperial War Museum, London it contains a wealth of documentary material relating to the contribution of women to the British war effort, much of it compiled by the Women’s Work Subcommittee set up in 1917.

Art Museum Image Gallery provided by H.W. Wilson (RR 2006/161) replaces AMICO Library (RR 2004/99). Currently comprising 96,000 images from 21 museums and galleries it is one of the number of image databases that are revolutionising access to visual materials. One of the features of the internet has been its use by learned societies to make publications and resources available to a wider audience than could ever be reached through the more expensive and cumbersome media of print.

AnthroSource (RR 2006/130), launched by the American Anthropological Association in 2004, will contain many of the serial publications of the Association as well as a host of other material. Other electronic sources covered include a major site on Icelandic literature (Saganet (RR 2006/149)) two important sites on witchcraft including one focusing on the Salem Witch Trials of New England (RR 2006/168 and RR 2006/170 (Salem)) and another image database, Archive of Early American Images (RR 2006/174) from Brown University.

Finally, I should end by highlighting and recommending a read of North American Regional Editor David Oberhelman’s “report” article on federated searching, The Time Machine: Federated Searching Today and Tomorrow. This gives a balanced summary of the promise and pitfalls of this highly topical approach to information retrieval, based on first hand experience, and is recommended reading for all in the reference world contemplating making their resources searchable through federated search engines.

Anthony ChalcraftEditor, Reference Reviews, and College Librarian, York St John College, York, UK