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Oxford online: will
people pay?
Now, this centuries-old collection
of illustrious reference works will be available to anyone with
an Internet connection -- if they can afford the annual subscription
fees.
"It will offer a new global standard for reference across
the Internet, and in the process make accessible Oxford's massive
reference assets," said Rob Scriven, managing editor of
Oxford Dictionaries.
The Core Collection, the first database to be available as part
of Oxford Reference Online, integrates over 100 dictionaries
and reference titles across an array of subjects ---from astronomy
to zoology -- into a single cross-searchable resource.
Oxford University Press decided to take its extensive collection
online because "the technology is there to put books online,
the content is there and the interest is large," said Rebecca
Seger, sales and marketing director for OUP USA scholarly and
professional reference group.
All that information comes at a price, however. Annual subscription
fees will cost approximately $250 a year for schools and anywhere
from $395 to just under $3,000 for multiple-user accounts such
as libraries.
Institutions and organizations can also sign up for a free 30-day
trial. More than 3,000 institutions around the world have signed
up so far.
But will users pay for content when many general reference materials
on the Web remain free?
Oxford University Press publishers think so.
The special rate for unlimited access to multi-volume reference
works will attract schools that couldn't otherwise afford to
buy all these books for their libraries, Seger said.
Consumers will also pay because of the editorial value of what
they're getting, OUP representatives claim.
While surfers can easily get inaccurate, unverified information
on the Web, each Oxford reference work is extensively checked
and peer-reviewed by top scholars in the field to ensure quality
before publication.
This lengthy approval process "makes the information in
the book something that you can trust," Seger said.
"There is a great deal of free information on the Web,
but Oxford Reference Online offers reference material that is
of the highest quality that is easily searchable -- with the
ability to cross-search from any word -- all in one location,"
Scriven agreed. "Nothing similar is offered free on the
Web."
What's more, new and revised material will be continually added
to works already available on the service. So roughly every
six months, when a new edition of a book is ready, it will be
updated on the site.
Some 60,000 pages (or 40 million words) from 100 titles have
been digitized so far. The company hopes to publish 300 digitized
titles (or over 130 million words) by the end of the decade,
including multi-volume reference works.
The ORO site will soon include bigger reference books with longer
entries, such as The Oxford Companions. Eventually, the
site will offer subject-specific portals(½éÉÜ) for topics such
as art, history, religion and languages.
Other publishers are making the transition from free to fee.
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