Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

When Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language appeared in 1755, it swiftly became the language’s most influential dictionary, and this dictionary is still widely used. For all its importance, though, the lack of an authoritative text and usable interface have made this resource more difficult to use than it should be.

Our three‐year Johnson’s Dictionary Online project, funded by the NEH, seeks to remedy this problem by creating an online, searchable edition of this Dictionary (including both 1st [1755] and 4th [1773] folio print editions) with functionality comparable to other modern, scholarly dictionaries. Nine months in, we have accomplished a great deal, but we have encountered some important challenges. Our panel will describe these challenges and explain how we are working through them. We hope attendees might learn from our experiences—and we hope to learn from theirs.

Beth Rapp Young, Associate Professor of English, University of Central Florida; Abigail Moreshead, Texts & Technology PhD. student, University of Central Florida; Carmen Faye Mathes, Assistant Professor, University of Regina; William Dorner, PhD., Instructional Specialist, University of Central Florida; Amy Larner Giroux, PhD., Associate Director of the Center for Humanities and Digital Research, University of Central Florida; & Connie Harper, Software Developer, University of Central Florida

Zoom registration