One of the crowning glories of British literary culture - the unique,116-year-old full Oxford English Dictionary - could cease to exist in up-to-date book form after it goes online on a subscription website in three months' time.
No decision has yet been taken about whether to produce a new print edition of the dictionary, which runs to 20 volumes and costs £1,800.
But "the internet is simply the way forward for all big reference projects", Juliet New, spokeswoman for the Oxford University Press online project, said yesterday.
Loss of the OED book version would be be the biggest inroad the net has yet made into the printed word. Until the mid-1990s OUP was pressing ahead with a £35m scheme to bring out an updated, revised book edition in 2010, linked to a new CD-ROM version. This would have been the third printed edition.
The first section, edited by Sir James Murray, came out in 1884 and the first full edition in 1928. It evolved unchallenged into the world's biggest, most authoritative dictionary, esteemed for its comprehensive lists of historical word usage as well as meaning. The second edition came out in 1989.
But the third book edition has now been shelved in favour of the internet launch in March.
New words and updates will be added on the website rather than in print.
What the dictionary's chief editor, John Simpson, calls "a dramatic change of plan" was prompted chiefly by the US. He said staff met a growing expectation among academics "that online searching of major reference and other textual resources would soon become a principal medium of access".
The switch to electronic lexicography follows three years of discussion and market research.
Ms New said: "A lot of that time was spent going to institutions and individuals to find out what they wanted. We know there is a potential and a market. We would never have gone into it otherwise."
The online version is expected to grow into a monster twice the size of the second print edition - which already stretches to some 40,000 pages thanks to supplementary volumes issued during the 1990s with a total of 9,000 new entries .
In March, a further 1,000 new entries will be added to the internet version. More new entries will go online four times a year; and many of the two million existing quotations will be continuously revised until - under existing plans - the new edition is regarded as complete in 2010.
Mr Simpson said web users would be able to read revisions at once, and feed in their own knowledge and views by email, instead of waiting ten years.
New material "and a broader coverage of English worldwide will gradually transform the venerable dictionary into an appropriate modern scholarly record of the history and development of the English language".
The second OED print edition has sold just over 20,000 copies since 1989, bringing £36m revenue. Ironically, its highest sales came while the website was being planned.
This is seen as partly thanks to publicity for Simon Winchester's bestseller, The Surgeon of Crowthorne, about a brilliant early OED contributor who was revealed to be a psychopathic killer under detention at Broadmoor hospital.
But OUP's internet investment follows the lead of the 20th century's other pre-eminent reference book, Encyclopaedia Britannica, which went online earlier this year. Britannica is considered unlikely to print a new book edition.
Its hugely popular website is free. OUP plans to charge annual licence fees to users. Yesterday it refused to disclose how much, but said individuals would pay less than corporate users or libraries.
Charges to institutions would depend on their size. Public library consortia were expected to negotiate cheap deals.Ms New said: "One difficulty is that by 2010 the dictionary will be so much bigger. This will make multi-volume hardbacks weightier and harder to use. But my gut feeling is that there probably will continue to be a hardback."
The OED second edition CD-Rom, published on December 16, is on sale at a special reduced price of £205.63 until January 31. After that it will cost £293.75.
From shed to website
1858 After considering discussion papers on Some Deficiencies in Our English Dictionaries, the Philological Society votes to compile a complete new dictionary and invites readers to contribute
1879 James Murray appointed editor, working from converted garden shed
1884 First section, covering A to ANT, published with 1,000 volunteers contributing
1887 Curse of BATTER to BOZ section strikes. Illustrating the noun "blue", it quotes a newspaper forecast that an Oxford student will win a rowing blue. The student, Ralph St John Ainslie, fails and dies young, haunted to the grave by his public failure. OED reference is quoted in his obituaries.
1896 After reaching DECEIT to DEJECT, Murray travels to Berkshire to thank star contributor, William Minor, a millionaire ex-US army surgeon. He finds Minor is in Broadmoor, after shooting a man in the street
1915 Murray dies. First world war delays book further
1928 First 10 volumes published.
1957 . Dr Robert Burchfield appointed to edit first dictionary supplement
1972 Supplement's first volume, A to G, is published
1982 The third volume, O to SCZ, is published
1984 Second edition commissioned
1986 Final supplement volume (SE to Z) is published
1989 The 20-volume second edition is published
1999 OUP appeals for contributions for third edition
March 2000 Target date for the website launch
2010 Target date for end of "the current cycle of revision"
