A Web of On‐line Dictionaries is maintained by Robert Beard and hosted on a server at Bucknell University. It is a directory of more than 800 free online dictionaries in more than 170 languages. Preference is given to dictionaries considered by the author to be of “high quality.” Downloadable and fee‐based materials are only listed if “exceptionally rare and/or unusually well‐executed.”
The top of the main page offers a “Quick Look Up” which can be used to type an English language word. All that is happening here, however, is that you are taken to the “WWWebster Dictionary” at Merriam Webster’s Web site (http://www.m‐w.com).
The primary content of a A Web of On‐line Dictionaries is the index of dictionaries by language ‐ 172 languages listed alphabetically. Major languages have numerous links. Under German, for example, you will find more than 30 links to dictionaries. The dictionaries often provide different perspectives:
Chinlex Chinese‐German Socio‐Economics Dictionary.
English‐German Dictionary.
English‐German Railroad and Model Railroading Dictionary.
English‐German Word List of Common Computer Terms.
German‐English Acronym Dictionary.
Langenscheidt’s Fremdworterbuch.
Less widely spoken languages have fewer links, the links are less specialized (that is, they are general dictionaries), and they tend to be arranged by larger language group category. Clicking on Swahili, for example, takes you to the category “African Languages,” under which you will find three links to Swahili dictionaries.
Overall the breadth of coverage is impressive, even though some less widely spoken languages only link to a few sites (which is to be expected ‐ you would find the same situation for printed books). There does seem to be an emphasis on sites of interest to English language speakers. You will, for example, find more links to French‐ English Dictionaries than you will find links to French‐German Dictionaries.
Recently added dictionaries are flagged as new; but no indication is actually provided as to when they were added. The Web site does provide a “last updated” date; but this is not always a reliable indicator in that it is possible to automatically feed today’s date into a Web page. Nevertheless, the content of the site seems current. A random check of 25 links resulted in only one dead link.
In addition to its primary purpose of indexing language dictionaries, A Web of On‐line Dictionaries also provides specialized directories in the following categories:
Multilingual Dictionaries.
Specialized English Dictionaries (that is, subject dictionaries).
Thesauri and Other Vocabulary Aids.
Language Identifiers and Guessers.
An Index of Dictionary Indices.
A Web of Online Grammars.
Overall, the site is well organized. No keyword search capability is provided; but navigation is easy using the alphabetical categories. The site is visually appealing. The only drawback in its design is that the opening page can require some side‐to‐side scrolling when viewed at low resolution. Other directories of this type exist on the Web, the most notable being:
Language Dictionaries and Translators (http://rivendel.com/∼ric/resources/dictionary.html).
Terminology Collection: Online Dictionaries (http://www.uwasa.fi/comm/termino/ collect/).
OneLook Dictionaries (http://www.onelook.com).
But in terms of its coverage of language dictionaries and its ease of use, A Web of On‐line Dictionaries is the best of its type. Highly recommended.
