| Abstract: |
Since February 2002, a first version of the "Deutsche Wörterbuch" (DWB) by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm has been available on the web. A CD-ROM beta version has been available since December 2002. This paper will focus on the steps involved in drawing up an electronic version of the DWB and, by demonstrating the design of the Graphical User Interface (GUI), will show how common standards of digitization were taken into account and user needs were anticipated during the production process. The history and structure of the DWB will be outlined first to point out some characteristics of the dictionary. The process of retrodigitization from printed page to electronic dictionary will be briefly described and, while giving an overview of the DWB GUI, the importance of content-based markup and a user-friendly but powerful GUI as a necessary precondition for sensible and effective access to the dictionary contents will be stressed. The title of this paper, "Towards the User", can thus be interpreted in two ways: during the digitization of the DWB, we consider the needs of the users, and by digitization, we hope to open up this huge amount of data and lexicological information for researchers. |