Author's Response: Cognitive devices and dictionaries: substance, format and funding

Lorenzo Richiardi reviewed the Dictionary of Epidemiology (sixth edition) and also did a little ad hoc research on which sources are used by some of his colleagues when teaching. Only a minority mentioned the web (wiki). The Dictionary is great and Miquel Porta has done exceptionally good work in updating the last two editions. However it is not open access. I would assume that the use of the Dictionary is not only, not even mainly, when teaching, in which case you try to find and quote the most authoritative sources even if they are not easily available. In everyday use I would assume (if other people do what I do) that one simply gets the easiest valid access source available. This may be a textbook or most probably the web. Not having the Dictionary as open access makes little sense nowadays and certainly limits considerably its use. There is a lot of effort in the preparation of the Dictionary on the part of us epidemiologists, and it is simply a pity not to use this excellent text as much as possible. It would be advisable if the International Epidemiological Association (IEA) took this action to make the Dictionary freely available and searchable in the web.