| Abstract: |
The "Deutsches Rechtswörterbuch" (DRW) is a dictionary of historical German and older West Germanic legal terms, spanning the time from the first word occurrences in written sources until the beginning of the 19th century. The project started at the end of the 19th century. So far twelve volumes have been published, containing more than 90,000 main entries (Aachenfahrt - schwedisch).
While the work is still primarily based on an archive of approx. 2.5 million handwritten index cards, the DRW team has used a system of several interlinked databases (including a collection of digitised source texts) as a tool for the lexicographical process since 1993."DRW Online" (www.deutsches-rechtswoerterbuch.de) reflects these internal databases in some ways. There are several indices providing easy access not only to the main entries (by either headwords or by word forms in their original spelling), but also to the full text of the source citations and the explanations. Additionally, DRW Online comprises a bibliographical database of the DRW sources, digitised source texts (partly as searchable full text, partly as images) and information about online resources. The dictionary text is enriched by several types of links: Entries are connected to other entries and to bibliographical data, reflecting the cross referencing of the print version. In addition to this, there are links to (possibly) corresponding entries in other historical dictionaries. An added functionality for the user who wants to evaluate the context of a source citation is the direct linking of citations with their (publicly available) online source texts - up to now, more than 200,000 citations (i.e. more than 40 %) have been linked to their respective pages. Furthermore, searching for additional source material within the database is facilitated by means of a button which combines the look-up of all spelling forms occurring in an entry. Finally, there are "implicit links": By double clicking on a word, the reader starts a search for this word form in several indices of DRW Online. |