Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM review

That old-fashioned title is more accurate than you might imagine: this dictionary really does come on CD - two, in fact - rather than a single DVD.

The result is a slightly convoluted installation process, in which you have to drag the two halves of a disk image from separate CDs before mounting them from your Desktop. Once past this, though, and you'll find at your fingertips what The Daily Telegraph described as 'the greatest dictionary in any language'.

This edition, a digital translation of the 20-volume, 21,730-page, 500,000-definition printed tome, is a fascinating, engaging and addictive book. We found ourselves clicking from word to word, in much the same way that you do with Wikipedia, stumbling across obscure words we'll probably never use. By Oxford's own reckoning, it would take 60 years to proofread the complete dictionary, and the text alone consumes 540MB of disk space. Hang on, though - you could easily fit that on a single CD, so why the two-disc split? It's probably down to the fact that the CDs contain both Mac and Windows editions in the same bundle.

Whatever the reason, and however many discs it involves, this is still a greener way to read the OUP's work. The printed dictionary weighs more than 62kg and the ink needed to print a complete run tips the scales at 2830kg. The carbon saving in transport alone makes this CD a suitable eco alternative.

Yet we can't help but feel that reading the printed work would be a lot more satisfying. The whole experience of this digital translation is spoiled by the interface - and you may recall we made a similar complaint about the iPhone edition of the Concise OED, too. It's competent, but unattractive and dated. There are no native menu options and the preferences must be set within the application itself. Resizing interface elements such as the dividing line between keywords and their definitions loses your place in the keyword list, and although there's a bookmark tab, there's no button to set bookmarks; instead, you need to click 'Mark'. Consistency could be improved.

Further, if there was ever an application crying out for an accompanying Dashboard widget, this is it. Its value would be hugely enhanced if we could use it as a replacement for the native Mac OS X dictionary.

However, none of this detracts greatly from the value of the product, which represents a real bargain. At £195, it compares favourably to the £750 hardback printed edition, which you would need to supplement with a further £110 investment in the three volumes of 'Additions' to bring it up to date. This digital edition is also cheaper than an online subscription, which costs £235 a year.

However, thanks to an agreement between the Oxford University Press and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, you may be able to access the dictionary online for free: 153 library authorities have subscribed to the online edition on your behalf, and all you need to gain access is a library card and an Internet connection. Check whether your library is part of the scheme at oed.com/services/public-libs.html.

There's no denying the dictionary's brilliance as a body of work in whichever form you access it, and the idea of owning a copy is massively appealing, even with its current and rather annoying interface.