The Digitizing and Wiki-izing of the Dictionary of Bahamian EnglishDr. Raymond OenbringThe College of The BahamasSCL 2012, Nassau, Bahamas

Introduction: History of the Project

•In 1982 John Holm and Andrea Shilling published the ground-breaking Dictionary of Bahamian English, a book that soon went out of print (and the publisher went out of business). Until recently, accessing the book has been nearly impossible for many scholars and most Bahamians.

Holm’s Presentation at 1988 SCL in Nassau, “A Supplement to the Dictionary of Bahamian English.”

•Offered numerous updates, edits, and new entries.

•“As our work [on the DBE]progressed it became increasingly clear that we had uncovered only the tip of the iceberg, and that much more work remains to be done. We hope other linguists in the Bahamas will continue this endeavor, which is richly rewarding for all that it reveals about Bahamian society, culture, and history.”

2010: original DBE scanned and made available online•Copyright given to COB by Holm and Shilling,

and pages of book scanned by COB libraries. •Page images are hosted on the dLOC (Digital

Library of the Caribbean) website. www.dloc.com (technical infrastructure provided by the University of Florida).

•J. Donnelly made a presentation about the work up to this point at the 2010 SCL in Barbados.

•If you have any questions about this part of the project, please direct them to J. Donnelly.

dLOC page images

dLOC DBE Interface

Good things/bad things about dLOC interfaceImportant Developments Limitations

• Accurate, broadly accessible record of the 1982 DBE

• No need for others to do scanning – can use the page images for OCR.

• Not searchable• No semantic and/or part of

speech tag links• No capacity for adding

definitions• No capacity for

multimedia enhancement• Users must click through

pages like reading a book

eDBE Main Page

eDBE Major Features:

•Searchable•Expandable•Comment feature•Users can suggest new entries – entries

that will go through review before going live.

•Includes semantic category and part of speech tags

•Designed for multimedia enhancement

Search Function

Search Results

Multimedia Definition

eDBE Database Backend

Parties involved in overall project:•Securing copyright approval, scanning

and posting of 1982 DBE page images: DLOC, COB libraries (led by W. Johnson), other faculty, including J. Donnelly

•Developing eDBE platform based on open-source phpMyFAQ platform: R. Oenbring

•OCR proofreading and digitizing of definitions: R. Oenbring, COB students, including E. Tenniel, and LMU students, including A. Laube

So far:

•Over 4,800 entries •Over 30,000 hits (probably a number of

these are from bots, but a good number of these are for certain humans)

Technical specifics

•Runs on PHP, specifically phpMyFAQ 2.6.4

•phpMyFAQ: open source software, designed originally for use in FAQs. Project homepage: www.phpmyfaq.de

•Database: MySQL 5.0.77

Elements yet to be completed:

•Activation of links between entries•Digitisation of 1982 DBE bibliography •Adding new entries•Multimedia enhancement (pictures,

sound, video)

Technical and Logistical Challenges•While OCR of the page images has

reduced the workload dramatically, all of the definitions have had to have been proofread more than once. This has been very tedious and time-consuming work.

•Although I have done my best to tighten it up, the platform’s comment feature isn’t immune to attacks by bots.

Check out the eDBE here:

•www.cobses.info/EDBEWW

•Some day we may give it a better URL, but for today the eDBE is hosted on COB SES’s website.

There is plenty of work left to do!•If you would like to help out with the

project, please contact me. Email: oenbrr@gmail.com or roenbring@cob.edu.bs

•If you are teaching a class of upper-level undergraduate students or graduate students, this could be a great opportunity to get them involved in a research-like activity.