OED3

I just finished The Meaning of Everything, by Simon Winchester, for LIS 2000. (Of course, as soon as I finished reading it, I realized I had taken three hours to read the completely wrong book for an essay assignment.) It's the history of the Oxford English Dictionary, which, as daunting as it sounds, was actually a fast and interesting read. The book mainly tells the story of the First Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which took 76 years to create and is twelve volumes. It mentions the Second Edition which came out in 1989 and is twenty volumes, and Winchester speculates on the Third Edition which is currently being created.

This third edition, conveniently shortened "OED3", expected to have forty volumes and could reach a million words. (http://cogscilibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/08/from-unregistered-words-to-oed3.html) Winchester brings up excellent possible disadvantages regarding the OED3, such as environmental waste and taking up too much space, and he throws out the possibility that OED3 might only be available online.

Is this a good idea? Should we even entertain the fact of printing such a massive collection or go straight to a digital version? (It might be a refreshing change of pace...at least there would be no arguments on the best way to digitize the collection!) The historian, romantic, and pack-rat in me would like to see a printed version just for the sake of having one created. Unlike local newspapers, hardly read novels, and barely circulated journal articles, there is no question on the importance of keeping a record of the entire English Language. No matter how many digital copies and formats we have, wouldn't you just feel safer with a printed version to keep in libraries and universities?

Luckily we have plenty of time to figure out the answer to this question...the latest estimated completion date of OED3 is 2037.