I have a difficult time not picking up an old book when I find one. I like to look at the yellowed pages, smell the mustiness that has accumulated over many years, and admire the worn binding and dog-eared pages. Those dog-eared pages are like a rabbit hole for me, as I can’t resist the urge to look at the content someone felt important enough to repeatedly visit or to mark for future reference. Reference books like thesauri and dictionaries are my Achilles heel. So a recent blog post about an old dictionary definitely caught my attention, and I think you will find it interesting as well.
The blogger shares his affinity for a 15-year old dictionary on his desk that is worn and used but still providing accurate information. He also points out that definitions are rarely singular and are entirely dependent on context. Sound familiar? This interesting topic was found on the OCDQ Blog in the post, “What an Old Dictionary Teaches us about Metadata.”
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
