Does the Internet signal the end for dictionary publishing?
Some forms of reference publishing are suffering as a result of the Internet but the convenience of free sources such as Wikipedia and Dictionary.com etc is no substitute for good lexicography. High quality content can be, and is, licensed for use in all kinds of electronic formats. Chambers had a number of licences in force for their products. Several Chambers dictionaries are already available as applications or resources for PC, MAC, iPhone, mobiles, e-readers and other handheld devices. They also have many other reference titles in both epub and Adobe pdf formats for downloading to e-readers or desktops. For educational, academic and language-learning purposes, we will still need authoritative, reliable dictionaries. There will always be a need to keep dictionaries up-to-date and that depends on the lexicographers. High quality content doesn’t create itself – it doesn’t magically appear on the Internet. That is where established companies and brand names like Chambers come in. But
