The online edition of The Dictionary of Irish Biography, Ireland’s national biographical dictionary, will become free-to-access in spring 2021. Since the online edition was launched eleven years ago, it has been available for institutions through a platform hosted by its hard-copy publishers, Cambridge University Press, but it will now move to an open access model, making it available to all users.
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| The online version of the DIB will move to an open-access site next year. |
The DIB, as it is affectionately known, is a project managed by the Royal Irish Academy. It is an important resource for all researchers and scholars, as well as journalists and politicians, and holds some 11,000 bigraphical entries that vary in length from a couple of hundred to 15,000 words.
These articles outline the lives of prominent Irish men and women from across the island of Ireland and also the Irish careers of those born elsewhere, and cover all time periods from the earliest times to the 21st century. The subjects include actors, architects, artists, criminals, engineers, writers, lawyers, musicians, politicians, saints, scientists, sportsmen and women, surgeons, writers and more. Only the dead are included.
Funding for the open access website has been confirmed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Dublin City Libraries.