|
|
Frequently asked questions
1. What is the Oxford DNB?
2. When was the DNB published?
3. Who published the DNB?
4. Why was it decided to create a new version of the DNB?
5. When was the Oxford DNB published?
6. How long did it take to edit the Oxford DNB?
7. How many contributors helped create the Oxford DNB?
8. Who is responsible for editing the Oxford DNB?
9. Is each contribution the same length?
10. How many of the DNB's articles were left out or edited?
11. How many entries are there in the Oxford DNB?
12. How many volumes are there altogether?
13. How many words are there in the sixty volumes?
14. What period does the dictionary cover?
15. Are there any illustrations?
16. This sounds like an enormous project: how much did it cost and how was it financed?
17. How is it decided which subjects merit an entry in the Oxford DNB?
18. Do they have to be British subjects?
19. How many of the biographies are new entries and how many of these are
women?
20. How much does it cost to buy the Oxford DNB?
21. Is there an online version?
22. Will the Oxford DNB now be updated more regularly?
23. Will I be able to find the Oxford DNB in my library?
24. Is the Oxford DNB available on CD or DVD?
1. What is the Oxford DNB?
The Oxford DNB is a very large collection of biographies of people in British
history, which has been written by thousands of specialists worldwide. The biographies cover the lives of over 50,000 noteworthy people from all walks of life in the British past, including artists, scientists, writers, industrialists, performers, explorers,
criminals, and eccentrics as well as politicians, church leaders, and soldiers, mariners, doctors, and lawyers. The biographies are written
by experts and provide up-to-date scholarship but are also concise and readable.
back to top
2. When was the DNB published?
The DNB was completed in 1900, contained over 29,000 lives, and rapidly became a national institution—an indispensable reference work for anyone interested in the histories and cultures of the British Isles. Supplements
published at intervals through the twentieth century added lives of subjects who had died up to 1990.
Altogether the DNB and its supplements included 38,607 lives in 33 million words.
back to top
3. Who published the DNB?
The DNB was established by a Victorian publisher called George Smith, who had made a fortune from importing
mineral water. George Smith was also the publisher of the Brontës and Trollope. The DNB was edited
from 1882 to 1891 by Leslie Stephen (the father of Virginia Woolf), and thereafter by Sidney Lee.
back to top
4. Why was it decided to create a new version of the DNB?
The DNB, written between 1885 and 1900, covered people who had died
by 1900. This collection was supplemented in the twentieth century: beginning in 1901, from time to time new volumes added lives of
people who had died since 1900. So the DNB has a long history. But none of the original articles, or those
added since, was ever revised or rewritten to take account of the latest discoveries in historical research. The
Oxford DNB is a new dictionary which incorporates and replaces the old, and expands it substantially for
a new readership.
back to top
5. When was the Oxford DNB published?
The Oxford DNB was published on 23 September 2004, simultaneously
in print, in sixty volumes, and online.
back to top
6. How long did it take to edit the Oxford DNB?
It took twelve years to extend and replace the DNB.
The project began in 1992 and was completed on schedule in 2004.
back to top
7. How many contributors helped create the Oxford DNB?
10,000 academic and non-academic authors contributed to the Oxford DNB, creating a worldwide community
of scholarship. The UK contingent is 7000; there's 1396 from the US and 302 from Australia, plus many round the world, including 52 from Germany and 16 from India.
back to top
8. Who is responsible for editing the Oxford DNB?
In 1992 Professor H. C. G. Matthew FBA of St Hugh's College, Oxford, a professor of history , and the editor
of fourteen volumes of Gladstone's diaries, was put in charge of compiling the Oxford DNB. Colin Matthew laid
out the detailed intellectual agenda for the new dictionary, and led a growing project team in Oxford and a network
of some 10,000 advisers and contributors around the world who were actively engaged in making the Oxford DNB.
Colin Matthew died suddenly of a heart attack in Oxford on 29 October 1999, at the age of fifty-eight. Professor Brian Harrison
(professor of modern British history, University of Oxford) succeeded Colin Matthew in January 2000, and
led the editorial team, which completed the dictionary as planned for publication in 2004.
Twenty-eight university research staff (including the editor), twelve external consultant editors, and an international network of 362 associate
editors have suggested new subjects and expert contributors and reviewed completed work. The project is governed
by a supervisory committee comprising representatives of the British Academy, the University of Oxford, Oxford
University Press, and the Royal Society.
Click here to learn about Lawrence Goldman, the Oxford DNB's current editor.
back to top
9. Is each contribution the same length?
The average length is 1103 words, but they range from a few dozen to 37,400 words.
back to top
10. How many of the DNB's articles were left out or edited?
None of the people included in the original dictionary were dropped: each person included in the DNB also has an entry
in the Oxford DNB. However, all of the original articles were either completely rewritten or revised.
Over 70 per cent of the DNB's articles were rewritten and the remainder revised.
back to top
11. How many entries are there in the Oxford DNB?
There are 50,731 biographical articles in the Oxford DNB, and 9343 cross-reference entries. Within
the biographical articles the dictionary includes a total of 55,557 lives: approximately 5000 of these are included
as sub-sections within larger articles.
The Oxford DNB online has been updated four times since publication in September 2004, first in January, May, and October 2005 then again in January 2006. Click here for the latest dictionary statistics.
back to top
12. How many volumes are there altogether?
There are sixty volumes altogether, from Aaron to Zuylestein. The complete set takes up 12 feet or 3.6 metres
of shelf space.
back to top
13. How many words are there in the sixty volumes?
There are over 62.5 million words in the Oxford DNB. The article texts take up about 55 million words,
with 7.5 million words in sources and other references printed at the foot of each article.
back to top
14. What period does the dictionary cover?
The print edition covers the period from the earliest times to the year 2000. The first biographical subject chronologically is Pytheas, a Greek explorer of the fourth century BC who left the first extant account of the islands of Britain. The last is of Sir Isaac Hai (Jack)
Jacob, a leading barrister who died on 26 December 2000.
The online edition extends the coverage of the dictionary to the end of 2002. Sir John Lawrence Knill, engineering geologist, who died on 31 December 2002 is now chronologically the last entry in the Oxford DNB.
back to top
15. Are there any illustrations?
In the Oxford DNB one in five biographies is illustrated with a portrait of its subject—a total
of 10,000 illustrations. The images were researched in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery in London,
and were drawn from the holdings of the National Portrait Gallery and 1500 other picture collections worldwide.
This has enabled the Oxford DNB to publish the largest-ever selection of national portraiture.
back to top
16. This sounds like an enormous project: how much did it cost and how was it financed?
The cost of creating the dictionary was £22.5 million; this covered research, writing, editing, and the
preparation of all material for final production. These costs were funded partly by the British Academy, which
contributed £3.5 million of public funds towards research costs; the remaining £19 million, together
with accommodation and other resources, was provided by Oxford University Press. OUP has also committed a further
£3 million to produce the final printed and online editions. So the total cost of publication was over £25.5
million.
back to top
17. How is it decided which subjects merit an entry in the Oxford DNB?
The first qualification is to have died: no living person is included in the dictionary. Beyond that, the coverage
is very wide: the aim is to include people who have attracted attention in the historical record—not always for
admirable reasons—and whom people will therefore wish to look up. The great and the good are there, as you'd
expect, but so are the not so great and the much less good. As well as rulers, politicians, church leaders, military
officers, and scholars, there are scientists and doctors, business people and labour leaders, artists and writers;
and also sportspeople, murderers, journalists, actors and entertainers, deviant clergymen, agnostics, hangmen,
campaigners, people who were famously old, or tall, or miserly . . . and in the breadth of the dictionary's coverage
lies some of its continuing fascination. However, there were some very noticeable gaps in the coverage of the DNB,
which the editorial policy of the Oxford DNB has sought to fill. Particular areas for expansion have
been in the coverage of women in all periods; business and the world of labour; non-metropolitan figures; colonial
America; and the twentieth century in general.
back to top
18. Do they have to be British subjects?
The coverage is mainly British, but 'British' is not narrowly defined. The long history of the British Isles alone is complicated
enough to make narrow definitions of nationality very difficult; the history of British connections overseas makes
them all but useless. The Oxford DNB takes an inclusive approach to the 'national' in its title, as the
editors did with the first DNB. It covers those who were born and lived in the British Isles, including
Ireland; people born there who made their mark in former colonies and in Europe; those who lived in the former colonies
when involved directly with British rule; and some people born abroad who lived in or left significant records
of the British Isles.
back to top
19. How many of the biographies are new entries and how many of
these are women?
Of 54,922 lives included in the print edition of the Oxford DNB (in 50,113 biographical articles), some 16,315 are new to
the dictionary. People from every period and profession have been added. There are 3869 new lives of women, taking
the total number of women included to 5627 as compared with 1758 in the whole of the first DNB.
In the 50,731 articles in the online Oxford DNB as of January 2006, 5787 women's lives are included.
back to top
20. How much does it cost to buy the Oxford DNB?
For information on buying the print edition, please click here.
Institutional and individual subscriptions to the online edition of the Oxford DNB are also available.
back to top
21. Is there an online version?
The Oxford DNB is available online to individuals
and institutions by annual subscription. The online edition offers unprecedented access to the dictionary by
allowing readers to search for people by date, profession, place, religion, and other characteristics, as well
as by finding words anywhere in the article texts. The online Oxford DNB also includes the entire text of
the first DNB—a further 33 million words. Personal subscriptions cost £195 a year (excluding
VAT), or in America $295. Institutions can choose between unlimited and concurrent user options; prices vary
according to use (size and type of institution), and are available on application; institutions may also sign up
for free online trials.
back to top
22. Will the Oxford DNB now be updated more regularly?
After publication of the complete Oxford DNB in 2004 we intend to keep the electronic version of the
dictionary up to date indefinitely. We will add new biographies of those who died after 2000, and add lives or
revisions to other parts of the dictionary in which new research has led to significant changes. New material will
be published first in the online edition, which will be updated three times a year; it will also be collected periodically
for publication in print.
Click on the links to find out about the online updates published in January, May, and September 2010, and most recently in January 2011.
back to top
23. Will I be able to find the Oxford DNB in my library?
Many public as well as academic libraries have either the Oxford DNB print set or Oxford DNB
online. Click on the link for a list of public library subscribers in the UK and Ireland.
back to top
24. Is the Oxford DNB available on CD or DVD?
The Oxford DNB is available on publication in both printed and online forms; we have not yet decided whether to produce another version on 'fixed' electronic media such as CD-ROM or DVD. The background to this is that we already had two major editions to produce, the print and online, and decided to put the online first, ahead of CD, because that is the way to reach the greatest number of people soonest, through public and other libraries. Libraries these days are generally no longer interested in CD-ROMs if online can be made available, because it causes them far more technical headaches to keep a collection of CDs working than simply to access websites. But we have not ruled out the possibility of producing a CD-ROM at some point. We appreciate that a number of individual readers continue to find them the fastest and easiest way to use such a work electronically—although possibly that number is changing as the web itself, and broadband access, become more widely used. However, we will be testing the water again and reviewing whether to proceed with a CD edition; we will take customers' feedback into account when doing so.
back to top
|
|
