The Mechanics' Institute Library has just received a donation of the be-all-and-end-all of English dictionaries, the Oxford English Dictionary. Yes, we already had a copy, as virtually every library does. But this isn’t just any copy – it’s the Compact Edition of The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd Edition), which reduces the entire 20 volume set into just a single volume. This particular volume dates back to 1996.
It looks like this:
Single Volume Twenty Volumes
How, you ask?
Easy! Well, probably not so easy. The Oxford Press photo-reduced the pages from the full-sized copy so that nine pages of OED text fit onto every page of this edition. And that was before digital images, no less!
The good news is that it takes up a lot less space than the original. The bad news is . . . well . . . the text is very small. Like, unless you have 20/1 million vision you might need a microscope (and your microscope might need a microscope).
Scale
The official description assures us that this compact version "captures all the wealth of scholarship found in the original edition in just one volume." If that doesn't excite you, what are you even doing here?
If we’ve managed to intrigue you, come on over to the 3rd floor and give our newest dictionary a (close) look. We’re keeping it right at the reference desk, and in case you forget your microscope we have a magnifying glass that will do the job.
