Dictionary of the Scots Language

The aim of this project was to create the Dictionary of the Scots Language, an electronic scholarly dictionary covering the Scots language from 1200 to the present. This was successfully completed and published on-line, and serves students of Scottish language, literature and culture around the world. With limited resources and in the short time-scale of three years, the project undertook to digitise and publish in searchable form on the Internet all 11 volumes of the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue and the 10 volumes of the Scottish National Dictionary. These historical dictionaries are mainly available only in specialised research libraries and are prohibitively expensive to buy. They are also in different typographical formats and were created using different editorial principles. The task in hand was to convert these texts from a variety of paper and electronic formats, and create a Data Type Definition that would allow the entire text to share the same mark-up specification and use the same software. This was implemented with an enormous effort in editorial planning, proof-reading and keying. The text is queried and viewed on-line either in its entirety or in its constituent parts. On 25 March 2004, the project achieved its goal of providing the DSL free to all on-line, courtesy of IT-Services, University of Dundee. It has also achieved its secondary purpose of serving as the locus for advancement of Scots language lexicographical resources, evidenced by Scottish Langage Dictionaries Limited adding its post-1976 Supplement to the site during 2005.