Contents of this screen

1 Purpose of the web-site.

2 Copyright - important notice to users and contributors

3 Searching

4 Entering special characters

5 Making Contributions

6 Obtaining a Password

7 Logging In

8 Contributions are to Come from Published Sources Only

9 Making a New Contribution

10 Entering Details of the Published Source

11 Adding a New Source

12 Correcting a Previous Contribution

13 Partners in the PACDIL project

14 Other Sites of Interest

PACDIL is an automatic website, designed for the collection of published additions and corrections to the Royal Irish Academy's Dictionary of the Irish Language (DIL). Many established scholars of medieval Irish currently have hundreds (if not thousands) of such additions and corrections entered into their own personal copies of DIL. PACDIL is designed to pool those resources and make them available to a wider audience. It is intended that the website will become a living repository for published additions and corrections noted by scholars all around the world, each with their own particular specialisation in the field of medieval Irish linguistics.

The copyright in the contents and design of this database is held by the Steering Committee of the PACDIL project. Readers may make and print single copies for their own personal use only. Contributors who make entries in this database thereby agree that any rights they might otherwise have had in the future publication of the contents of the database are waived as against the Steering Committee and its assignees.

You do not need to login if you only want to search the database.

Click on the Search button on the toolbar at the top of the page. You can search PACDIL in a number of different ways: by Headword, by DIL letter, or by source.

Searching by Headword will bring you to the particular word you are looking for. Note: different headwords with the same spelling are distinguished in DIL by a prefixed number (e.g. 1 cathach, 2 cathach, etc.). In PACDIL, these distinguishing digits are placed after the headword: cathach 1, cathach 2, etc. If you wish to confine your search to just one of these headwords, then type the headword followed by the digit, e.g. 'cathach 2'. Otherwise, omit the digit.

Searching by DIL letter will display all the entries for the letter you select. Please note that entries for words beginning with ‘d’ are divided into two separate DIL letters: D (d to degóir) and D2.

If you want to see what entries have been made from a particular source, click on the radio button beside the drop down list saying ‘Select source’, then click on the arrow and choose the source you wish to search.

To limit any of these searches to those entries made after a specific date (e.g. the last time you made a search), check the check button to the left of ‘Search only last’, select ‘Days’, ‘Months’ or ‘Years’ from the drop down list, and type a number in the text box.

To browse through the whole database, select search by DIL letter and enter A in the text box. Entries for the letter A will be displayed. When you want to proceed to B, click on ‘Browse next DIL letter’. You can also return to the previous letter by pressing the ‘Browse previous DIL letter’ button.

Accented and other special characters can be entered in any text box. Click on the ‘Special characters’ button that appears beside the box and a table of characters will appear. Click on the character you wish to insert. The table will close and the character will appear in the text box.

The special characters box contains all the vowels, both upper and lower case, with acute, macron, grave, circumflex, umlaut. It also contains a range of angle brackets that should otherwise normally be available directly from your keyboard, as well as the nó or vel symbol, ligatures, and a vertical line for marking verse divisions (usually available on keyboards using Shift ). PACDIL cannot handle the punctum delens and instead uses h. The combinations sh and fh are available in the special character table, but selecting this has just the same effect as typing the two letters.

If you have trouble viewing any of these symbols in the special character box, check that you have an up-to-date version of your browser. In cases where some characters are not displayed properly but are represented by black rectangles, you may find that when you select the character it is properly displayed on the main screen. Thus, by trial and error you can work out what each rectangle represents.

Alternatively, depending on your keyboard setup, you may be able to use keystrokes to enter some accented characters. For example, on UK-configured keyboards (but not on US keyboards), if you hold down the AltGr button to the right of the space bar and type a vowel the corresponding character with an acute accent will be entered.

Persons with high level qualifications and expertise in Old and Middle Irish are invited to contribute entries to the database. In order to safeguard the quality of entries in PACDIL, contributors will first have to apply for a password. Contributors must use this password to login before they can make new entries to the database. Each entry will be tagged with the contributor’s ‘user name’.

To obtain a password, select 'Welcome to PACDIL' from the toolbar at the top of the page. Go to the bottom of the 'Welcome to PACDIL' screen and click on the words 'register new contributor'. A screen will appear inviting you to submit your details to the Site Coordinator. Enter your name (or a nickname if you prefer) in the 'user name' box. Complete the other details and click on the 'submit' button. You will shortly be contacted by the Site Coordinators.

From the Homepage click on the green welcome notice. An introduction to the project will appear. To login, either select ‘login’ from the toolbar at the top of the page or scroll down and click on the ‘member’s login’ button. If access is denied, ensure that you have correctly entered both your username and password. Note that the password is CASE SENSITIVE. If you have forgotten your password, click on the button marked ‘I forgot my password’, fill in your user name when requested, and a reminder will be automatically sent to your e-mail address.

PACDIL is designed to collect only published additions and corrections. Each entry in PACDIL must include the published source for the information in the entry.

To add a new contribution or make changes to a contribution you made earlier, click on ‘Add contribution’ on the toolbar. If you wish to make a new addition or correction to DIL, simply fill in the headword in the box provided, using the spelling as it appears in DIL. Use lower case letters unless upper case is used in DIL (e.g. in proper names).

Note: different headwords with the same spelling are distinguished in DIL by a prefixed number (e.g. 1 cathach, 2 cathach, etc.). In PACDIL, in order  to maintain the correct sort order, these distinguishing digits are placed after the headword: cathach 1, cathach 2, etc. Please follow this system when entering headwords.

When you are finished typing the headword, click ‘Submit’. PACDIL will now check for other entries under the same headword and bring you to that location in the database, or to the nearest point if no other contributions have been made for that headword. You should ensure at this point that no one else has already entered the addition or correction you wish to make. If they have, click on ‘Return to previous page’. If the correction/addition has not already been entered, click on ‘Proceed to add new contribution’.

A form will appear in which the headword and DIL letter have already been filled in. Fill in the DIL column and line. These are important as it indicates precisely where the addition/correction is to be made in DIL (for the usage see the addenda et corrigenda to DIL). Also, entries in PACDIL are not sorted alphabetically but by DIL letter, column and line. This enables PACDIL to put all contributions into the order in which they should appear in a revised DIL. Important: entering incorrect column or line numbers will result in your contribution appearing out of sequence in PACDIL.

Click on the down arrow to the right of the Select Source box. If you know the abbreviation for the source you are citing from, select it from the drop down list. Alternatively, you can type the first couple of letters of the abbreviation and it will appear in the box. If you are unsure of the abbreviation, click on the button marked ‘view key to abbreviations’ to check the full reference. If the source has not previously been entered, click on ‘Add new source to list’ and follow the instructions below ‘Adding a new source’.

When you have selected a source, complete the rest of the form by filling in the volume number (if appropriate) and the page number(s) in the book or journal from which your contribution is drawn. Press ‘Continue’ to submit the bibliographical details, or cancel to abort the entry.

A new window will appear in which you may enter the addition or correction. For your convenience, previous contributions for the same word are displayed in a box at the top of the window. You may enter your addition or correction in the box below. Note: contributions must be succinct, usually no more than a few words. It is not intended that additions and corrections will engage in debate, although they may carry the substance of an argument if it can be briefly expressed. For guidance in this area, you should consult the addenda et corrigenda to DIL and other entries in PACDIL. Your contribution should also state clearly where the addition or correction is to be entered, e.g. Before X insert Y; For A read B.

Special characters can be added by using the ‘Special characters’ button below the text box, or by using shortcut keys (see above). Bold, italic, and underlining can be turned on or off using the B, I, and U buttons at the top of the box. Alternatively, you can highlight a portion of your text in the normal way (e.g. holding down the left button on the mouse and dragging the cursor over the words you wish to select) and then click on the appropriate button.

If you wish to abandon your contribution at this stage, click ‘Cancel’. If, however, you are satisfied with your wording, click on ‘Submit’. Your contribution will then be entered in the PACDIL database and displayed on the screen.

If you want to add further contributions, click on ‘Make new contribution’ and enter your contribution as described above. If you need to make a correction to your contribution, click on ‘Correct previous contribution’. Your latest contribution will be displayed and you can enter corrections as required. Follow the directions under Correcting a previous contribution.

When you click on ‘Add new source to list’, a new window opens. A complete bibliography is displayed in the box on the lefthandside of the window so that you can double check that the source has not already been entered. Click on the radio buttons to indicate whether your source is a ‘Journal’ or ‘Book’ (by default it is set to ‘Book’). Fill in the title and an abbreviation for all sources. For books, you will also have to fill in details of the Author(s)/Editor(s) and place and date of publication. When you are satisfied with the details you have entered, press ‘Submit’. If the same title has previously been entered, a warning message will be displayed and the similar title will be displayed. If this is the same source as the one you have tried to enter, click on ‘Close window’ and select the original abbreviation as described above. If it is a different source, click on ‘Back’, amend your entry accordingly, and resubmit.

When you have satisfactorily completed all fields, a message will be displayed indicating that your source has been added to the database. At this point you may add another source by clicking on the ‘Add another source button’, or return to your contribution by pressing ‘Close window’. Your new source will have been automatically selected in the abbreviation text box. Complete the rest of the bibliographical details for your entry as described above under Entering details of the published source.

Apart from making changes to a contribution you have just entered, you can also change any of your previous contributions (although not one belonging to any other contributor).

Once you have logged in, click on ‘Add contribution’ on the tool bar at the top of the window. Click on the ‘Correct a previous contribution of yours’ radio button, and type the headword for the entry you wish to emend. Your own entry/entries for that headword will be displayed, and you will be prompted to select the contribution to be emended. Select the contribution by clicking on it. (You can browse through all your contributions at this stage if you wish).

Once you are satisfied with the bibliographical details you have entered on the first page, press ‘Save changes’. Your addition or correction will then be displayed. When you are happy with the text here, press ‘Save changes’.

The partners in the PACDIL project are as follows:

Murdoch University

The Royal Irish Academy

The University of Ulster

The University of Vienna (with funding from Brennos - Verein für Keltologie).

The Site Coordinators are Anthony Harvey (Royal Irish Academy) and Gregory Toner (University of Ulster).

14 Other sites of interest

The following kindred ventures may be of interest to PACDIL website visitors:

The electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language:

www.arts.ulster.ac.uk/research/celtic/projects/edil

The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic Sources (DMLCS) project:

http://journals.eecs.qub.ac.uk/DMLCS/DMLCS.html

LOCUS, the Irish placenames project:

http://www.ucc.ie/locus