RE: OED, CD-ROMS, Hard drives, etc.

[Dorothy Day day@xxxxxxxx]

On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, Robert Holmgren wrote:

> I'd like to launch the OED, and the lookup itself,
> by pointing at a word in XyWrite and hitting a button (a la Random House
> Unabridged)... OED apparently has it built-in for MS Word via DDE, but
> won't cooperate with any other apps to that extent. Otherwise, it
> looks like a
> formidable engine to me. Finding words by their definition, among other
> things... Searching for quotes by date or author... Searching the
> whole text in
> numerous ways... Wow.
>

The online version of the OED is powered by the Open Text search engine,
which really *is* one of the best out there, and I imagine that's what
is bundled with the CD-ROM version. Worth the price of admission all by
itself (assuming you have the small change to start with).

Robert's comments about the longevity of data and/or tools on any given
medium are well put, but till your CD-ROM drive drops in its tracks,
you'll have the use of the OED and other tools for that many years; not
a bad short-term investment. We drop a lot more for hardware that loses
its value in six months...

	--Dorothy Day


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Dorothy Day			
School of Library and Information Science
Indiana University
day@xxxxxxxx