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Germanic Lexicon Project
Message Board
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Author: Sean Crist (Eurac)
Email: kurisuto at panix dot com
Date: 2006-09-24 15:51:26
Subject: (Bleak) future of the project
The project to hand-correct Bosworth/Toller is going very well, thanks to all the volunteers, and especially thanks to Ondrej Tichy's team. Nearly all of the pages are reserved, and the corrections are being completed much faster than I ever expected. Cleasby/Vigfusson is also progressing, but at a slower pace.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that the rest of the project is at a full halt for the forseeable future. While I like my new job, it leaves me no more time to work on the project, other than minor maintenence. This affects the work I was doing myself, and also all of the many sub-projects where somebody else had taken on a part of the project but needed my involvement in some way. There are many sub-projects which will just have to sit uncompleted, possibly forever.
My present contract job runs thru December 2007 (possibly longer, if my contract is extended), and I don't expect to be able to work on the project as long as I am on this job. Perhaps, by some great stroke of luck, the circumstances after December 2007 will allow me to pick up the project again.
I've repeatedly sought funding for the project. I submitted a total of six major grant proposals to try to obtain real funding for the project, and was been turned down each time. The comments by the reviewers were generally favorable, but sadly, the project never quite made the final cut.
This is very unfortunate, because it is clear by several measures that the project materials are widely used. There is obviously broad interest in the project. I have such wonderful ideas for future development, but these plans must be shelved.
The volunteer corrections on Bosworth/Toller and Cleasby/Vigfusson can continue to run without my supervision, and a new version will automatically be generated each week. The other materials will continue to be available, but they are essentially frozen in their present state.
--Sean