OED and the QPBB

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Sun, Jul 13, 2003 at 07:32:50PM -0400, Baker, John wrote:

>         Will the Quality Paperback Book Club access to the
> Oxford English Dictionary return?  For some time, those of
> us without institutional access to the online OED were able
> to access it through the QPBB website.  (QPBB membership was
> required.)  Now, however, there is only a sad announcement
> that "We are currently in the process of renegotiating our
> license with Oxford University Press for access to the
> Oxford English Dictionary Online. We hope to be able to
> restore this link soon."  Jesse, do you have any idea where
> this stands?

Sorry for the delay in answering. The electronic marketing
people were all in England; I solved this problem by flying
to England and running into them in the hallway.

The answer is that QPB access to OED Online will probably not
return. I won't attempt to assign blame to QPB; let's just
say that the renegotiations weren't successful.

On the other hand, we should be rolling out a reasonable
individual subscription plan by the late Fall.

Jesse Sheidlower
Oxford English Dictionary