Lexica and Thicktionaries

by wschnell

if it were thin, it would not have the depth that’s needed, right?

At times, highly specialized know-how or reference material is needed and over the years, this means LOTS of reference books on one’s shelf. Turns out that for the narrow focus you need at work, the information in there is still better than what the usual search engine would come up with. Turns out the amout of garbage is low in well-selected (and self-selected!) books.

Some of my old lexica from when I studied, they made their way to the basement some years ago; I wonder what would become of them should I relocate. This is dead material that would cost hundreds of Euros if I bought them as eBooks or something similar. Reactivating them?

Didn’t Bill Gates mumble about “information at your fingertips” in the 90’s? Hm.

Looks like I will spend some time feeding several dictionaries and similar reference material into my scanner, soon.