Portfolio: Dictionaries
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Mosby's Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing & Health Professions
by Peter Harris, Sue Nagy & Nick Verdaxis
Completion Date
2005
Publisher
Elsevier (Australia)
Roles Performed
Project details
Australia and New Zealand had been using the US edition for most of its 28 years and 7 editions. Over the intervening years Australasian health practices had grown away from those of the US and so, though it was still an annual best-seller, Mosby had to be revisited for the local market.
We were contracted to handle the production component of the project and worked closely with Elsevier's Production Department and the Editors-in-Chief. The first big problem was that the data, having been accumulated over 27 years, carried the detritus of the years. At one time or another it had been in different formats and databases and entangled with the data was a mish-mash of unrelated code fragments.
For this book we did the following:
– Analysed the data then designed and built a database to contain it
– Implemented a very complex migration of old and disorganised data from the US edition into the database
– Output all headwords sorted by 50 categories to allow 3 editors-in-chief to review categorisation
– Modified categories
– Output 49 sets extracted by category for subject specialists
– Trained subject specialists in data handling
– Following specialists' markup deleted, added and modified entries
– Did 50% of all editing (to assist Elsevier whose resources were over-stretched)
– Output pronunciations and etymology for lexicographers to adapt
– Integrated final corrections into database
– Designed page layout
– Designed the cover
– Wrote output scripts to enable fast database page-building
– Redrew many diagrams
– Colour-corrected many pictures, scanned new material, optimised for print
– Paginated 2200 pages (in 10 days)
– Designed and mastered accompanying CD including spell-checker and medical atlas
– Created XML and other forms of output
We have just begun production of the 2nd Australian and New Zealand edition.
