The Logos Dictionary is a multilingual dictionary with 7,580,560 words (as of December 10, 1998). The Logos Wordtheque is a word-by-word multilingual library with a massive database of 325,916,827 words extracted from multilingual novels, technical literature and translated texts. Logos Linguistic Resources is a database of 553 glossaries. The Logos Universal Conjugator is a database for the conjugation of verbs in 17 languages.
Logos is an international translation company based in Modena, Italy. In 1997, Logos decided to put all the linguistic tools used by its translators on the web for free. Logos had 200 translators on the spot and 2,500 free-lance translators all over the world, who processed around 200 texts per day.
When interviewed by Annie Kahn in the French daily newspaper Le Monde of December 7, 1997, Rodrigo Vergara, the head of Logos, explained: "We wanted all our translators to have access to the same translation tools. So we made them available on the internet, and while we were at it we decided to make the site open to the public. This made us extremely popular, and also gave us a lot of exposure. The operation has in fact attracted a great number of customers, but also allowed us to widen our network of translators, thanks to the contacts made in the wake of the initiative."
In the same article, Annie Kahn wrote: "The Logos site is much more than a mere dictionary or a collection of links to other online dictionaries. A system cornerstone is the document search software, which processes a corpus of literary texts available free of charge on the web. If you search for the definition or the translation of a word ('didactique', for example), you get not only the answer sought, but also a quote from one of the literary works containing the word (in our case, an essay by Voltaire). All it takes is a click on the mouse button to access the whole text or even to order the book, thanks to a partnership agreement with Amazon.com, the famous online bookstore. Foreign translations are also available. However, if no text containing the required word is found, the system acts as a search engine, sending the user to other websites mentioning the term in question. In the case of certain words, you can even hear the pronunciation. If there is no translation currently available, the system calls on the public to contribute. Everyone can make their own suggestions, after which Logos translators and the company check the forwarded translations."
1997: MULTIMEDIA CONVERGENCE
[Overview]
As more and more people were using digital technology, previously distinct information-based industries, such as printing and publishing, graphic design, media, sound recording and film making, were converging into one industry, with information as a common product. This trend was named "multimedia convergence", with a massive loss of jobs, and a serious enough issue to be tackled by the ILO (International Labor Organization) by 1997. The first ILO Symposium on Multimedia Convergence was held in January 1997 at ILO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. This international symposium was a tripartite meeting with employers, unionists, and government representatives. Some participants, mostly employers, demonstrated the information society was generating or would generate jobs, whereas other participants, mostly unionists, demonstrated there was a rise in unemployment worldwide.
[In Depth (published in 1999)]
The first ILO Symposium on Multimedia Convergence was held in January 1997 at the headquarters of ILO (International Labor Office) in Geneva, Switzerland.
Peter Leisink, associate professor of labor studies at the Utrecht University, Netherlands, explained: "A survey of the United Kingdom book publishing industry showed that proofreaders and editors have been externalized and now work as home-based teleworkers. The vast majority of them had entered self-employment, not as a first-choice option, but as a result of industry mergers, relocations and redundancies. These people should actually be regarded as casualized workers, rather than as self-employed, since they have little autonomy and tend to depend on only one publishing house for their work."