The articles deal with issues related to corpus theory, corpus compilation, and various ways of using corpora. They provide examples of the evaluation and exploitation of corpora from synchronic, diachronic, and contrastive perspectives. The application-related approach maintained throughout also raises questions in connection with copyright, the reading process, and electronic coding techniques.

In the framework of the colloquia on Machine Processing of Old German Texts held at regular intervals since 1971, the Fifth International Colloquium (March 1997 in Wurzburg) concentrated on the use of the new media, corpus-related issues posed by Old German texts, and lexicographic problems in connection with different historical stages of language development. In addition there was discussion of fundamental organizational questions, encoding designs such as the Text Encoding Initiative, and solutions to individuals problems posed by text data processing. The central papers are assembled in this volume."