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Background pieceThe Oxford DNB is a collection of 57,000 specially written biographies of men and women—all deceased—who have shaped all aspects of the British past, worldwide, from the earliest times to the twenty-first century. The stories of these lives—told in substantial, authoritative, and readable articles—were published simultaneously in sixty print volumes and online in September 2004. Coverage in the print edition stretches from the earliest time to the end of the year 2000. Since initial publication the Oxford DNB online has been extended in three annual updates (published each January, May, and October). These updates extend the dictionary’s coverage of people who died after 2000, as well as adding biographies of people from the earliest times to 2000, often paying particular attention to those who shared a common interest or identity. The Oxford DNB project is a unique amalgam of academic and publishing activity. It is constituted as a research and publishing project of the University of Oxford, with research funding, until 2004, from the British Academy, and all other funding and resources from Oxford University Press. The dictionary is published by Oxford University Press, the publisher (since 1917) of the original DNB and of the Oxford English Dictionary, and itself a department of the University of Oxford. In 2007 the Oxford DNB was awarded a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education. The original DNB was completed in 1900 and rapidly became a national institution—an indispensable reference work for anyone interested in the histories and cultures of the British Isles. For the next ninety years supplements appeared at intervals, chronicling notable figures, but by the late twentieth century it had become clear that a massive programme of revision was needed to stop the DNB from becoming a historical curiosity. In 1992 work began on the Oxford DNB. Replacing and extending the DNB, the Oxford DNB was probably the largest co-operative research project ever undertaken in the humanities. Over a twelve-year period a team of academic editors and publishers in Oxford co-ordinated the work of many thousands of specialists worldwide to recreate one of the great reference works in English for the twenty-first century. Owing to its broad, accessible, and authoritative coverage, the Oxford DNB has proved to have a broad appeal: from scholarly researchers to university, college, and school students; from professional writers to general readers of biography; and from local and family historians to librarians, archivists, and curators. For more information about the Oxford DNB please contact Juliet Evans at Oxford University Press on +44 (0)1865 353911 or email juliet.evans@oup.com. |
