INFORMATION technology has had a profound impact on many aspects of life over the last twenty-odd years. One linguistic area where computers have made important inroads is the compiling of dictionaries. Until the 1980s, such works were still put together, more or less, along the same paper-and-ink lines as when Dr Johnson was at work in the 18th century, although methods of work and levels of reliability had improved. In the last two decades, however, there have been numerous IT-led developments, revolutions and evolutions in lexicography, mostly to the benefit of dictionary users, though some more recent developments are perhaps debatable. [All searches described in this article were made with Google, and only pages in English were requested.]