1. LIB 640 Information Sources and
Services
Summer 2012
Encyclopedias
From tomes to technology

2. What is an encyclopedia?
 An encyclopedia is a set of books with articles on
every topic you can think of
 Each article in the encyclopedia gives you
information about the topic
 Guide words on used in an encyclopedia to help you
find information
 An encyclopedia has the topics in alphabetical
order.
Click on the girl above to practice using an encyclopedia.
Encyclopedias 2

3. Origin of the word?
 The term
 The word encyclopaedia comes from the Koine Greek
ἐγκυκλοπαιδεία,[8] from Greek ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία,[9]
transliterated enkyklios paideia, meaning “general
education”: enkyklios (ἐγκύκλιος), meaning
“circular, recurrent, required regularly, general”[10]
+ paideia (παιδεία), meaning “education, rearing of a
child”.[11] but it was reduced to a single word due to
an error[12] by copyists of Latin manuscripts.
Together, the phrase literally translates as “complete
instruction” or “complete knowledge”.
 From “Encyclopedia” on Wikipedia
Encyclopedias 3

4. Largest and earliest encyclopedia?
 Yongle dadian, ( Chinese: “Great Canon
[literally, Vast Documents] of the Yongle Era”)
 Chinese compilation that was the world’s largest
known encyclopaedia. Compiled during the Ming
dynasty (1368–1644) by thousands of Chinese
scholars under the direction of the Yongle
emperor (reigned 1402–24), it was completed in
1408.
 Encyclopedia Britannica entry
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/654973/Yongle-dadian
Encyclopedias 4

5. The first English encyclopedia in all
but name
“the first English
encyclopaedia
arranged in
alphabetical order”
and also “appears to
be the first technical
dictionary in any
language.”
John Harris - Lexicon
Technicum - 1704 first
edition
See also John Harris -
Lexicon Technicum -
1708 second edition
Encyclopedias 5

6. A more famous revision of
Lexicon Technicum
 Ephraim Chambers (c.1680-1740)
Cyclopaedia. First edition, 1728
Encyclopedias 6

7. A French “revision”
of Chambers
 “Encyclopedia, or a
systematic dictionary of
the sciences, arts, and
crafts” was an
encyclopedia published
in France between 1751
and 1766, with later
supplements and
revisions in 1772, 1777
and 1780 and numerous
foreign editions and
later derivatives
Encyclopedias 7

8. Diderot’s work translated
See the Introduction for more information about this project
Encyclopedias 8

9. Followed by a
familiar title

 First published in
Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; was
published one section at a time, in
“fascicles,” over a three-year period, in
Edinburgh, Scotland.
 2nd edition 10 vols. 1777-84.
 9th ed. 1875-89. “Scholar’s edition.”
 11th ed. 1910-11 first under US
ownership, but still with British
authorship. Full text online at
LoveToKnow Classic Encyclopedia.
 Move to Chicago and continuous
revision in 1930s
Encyclopedias 9

10. Encyclopedia or Dictionary?
 Why both?
 the dictionary of arts and sciences was the more
direct predecessor of the modern encyclopedia.
 e.g. John Harris’s Lexicon technicum (2
vols., 1704, 1710); and Ephraim Chambers’s (1680–1740)
Cyclopaedia (2 vols., 1728).
 These works consisted of entries on terms (mainly
from the arts and sciences) in alphabetical
order, but they professed to be more than
definitions of words by also being descriptions of
things.
 Encyclopedism - Alphabetical Encyclopedias
Encyclopedias 10

11. Britannica’s big change
 Britannica 3 (AKA 15th ed.).
First publ. 1974
 3 sections:
 Propaedia: single volume
systematic outline of
human knowledge
 Micropaedia: 10 vols.,
102,000 entries, short
articles
 Macropaedia: 19 vols,
4,000+ articles,
expansions of selected
topics from Micropaedia.
Encyclopedias 11

12. Britannica’s next big change

http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2012/03/change/
Encyclopedias 12

13. From print to electronic
 The first electronic encyclopedias, such as Grolier's
Academic American Encyclopedia on CD-ROM (1985), were
basically digitized versions of the printed sets. But by the
early 1990s publishers began adding audio, video, and
Internet links, making them fully interactive multimedia
platforms, and often gave them away with the purchase of a
new computer. By 2002 there were several general
encyclopedias available in CD-ROM format, including
World Book, Encarta, Grolier's, and Britannica.
 US History Encyclopedia: Encyclopedias
Encyclopedias 13

14. A popular children’s encyclopedia

 First published in 1971, World Book Encyclopedia is the
best selling print Encyclopedia set in the world. The
World Book Encyclopedia presents information in an
accessible, usable form that promotes learning. World
Book Encyclopedia 2012 is designed to meet the reference
needs of students from elementary school through high
school.
 World Book Encyclopedia 2012
Encyclopedias 14

15. And then there was Wikipedia
 Actually, Nupedia came first:
 Nupedia was a Web-based encyclopedia whose articles
were written by experts and licensed as free content. It
was founded by Jimmy Wales and underwritten by
Bomis, with Larry Sanger as editor-in-chief. Nupedia
lasted from March of 2000[1] until September of 2003, and
is mostly known now as the predecessor of the free wiki
encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
 See also Larry Sanger’s The Early History of Nupedia
and Wikipedia: A Memoir
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.nupedia.com
(archived)
Type of site Internet encyclopedia project
Encyclopedias Nupedia was organized by subject, with subject editors 15

16. But what is Wikipedia?
Encyclopedias 16

17. Anyone can edit?
 What is Wikipedia?
 Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, written
collaboratively by the people who use it. It is a special
type of website designed to make collaboration easy,
called a wiki. Many people are constantly improving
Wikipedia, making thousands of changes per hour.
All of these changes are recorded in article histories
and recent changes. For a more detailed account of
the project, see About Wikipedia.
 Don't be afraid to edit – anyone can edit
almost every page, and we are encouraged
to be bold!
Encyclopedias 17

18. Discussion about Wikipedia
 Library Journal:
 . . . once given the freedom (to edit), will people
abuse it? Most certainly. Many observers have
already expressed concerns over Wikipedia’s
shortcomings, pointing to valid examples of
editorial inferiority, yet many others have been
charmed by its concept and astonished by its up-
to-dateness. Some have gone so far as to claim
they prefer it to the venerable (albeit not free)
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online.
 I Want My Wikipedia! by Barry X. Miller, Karl Helicher, &
Teresa Berry -- Library Journal, 4/1/2006
Encyclopedias 18

19. Harvard debate page

 This is a Harvard Business School case study about
a specific article on Wikipedia, but it includes some
useful review material about Encyclopedias in
general, Wikipedia's Birth, Nupedia, the evolution
From Nupedia to Wikipedia, a state of the website
Wikipedia in 2006, and a review of the Debates and
Controversies
 Harvard Business School Professors Karim R. Lakhani and Andrew
P. McAfee prepared this case. . . . HBS cases are developed solely as the
basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of
primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management.
Encyclopedias 19

20. Should we dismiss Wikipedia?
 Probably not, just be careful, though!
 Because of its up-to-date information, Wikipedia will
attract high school and college students. However, as with
much information floating around in cyberspace, a
healthy degree of skepticism and skill at winnowing fact
from opinion are required.
 Karl Helicher, Director of Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of
Prussia, PA in I Want My Wikipedia!
 Despite its flaws, however, Wikipedia should not be
dismissed. Although the writing is not exceptional, good
content abounds.
 Teresa Berry, Associate Professor/Science Librarian at the Univ.
of Tennessee Libs., Knoxville in I Want My Wikipedia!
Encyclopedias 20

21. Colbert’s Countercurrent
http://wikiality.wikia.com/
Encyclopedias 21

22. One solution to Wikipedia

 Welcome to Citizendium, an endeavor to provide free
knowledge with the highest standards of
writing, reliability, and comprehensiveness. We welcome
anyone who wants to share information by writing well-
researched and authoritative articles on virtually any
subject.
 We have 16,263 articles at different stages of
development, of which 164 are expert-approved.
But see: Citizendium turns five, but the Wikipedia fork is
dead in the water, Oct 27 2011
Encyclopedias 22

23. What is an encyclopedia for?
 Authority and dependability?
 Or a quick source of “facts”?
 Or what?
OR
Encyclopedias 23

24. But is it OR any more?
 Is Britannica Going Wiki?
 Encyclopaedia Britannica recently introduced some new
features to Britannica Online that make it easy for our
readers to suggest edits, revisions, updates, amplifications,
and corrections to our articles and to submit their
handiwork to our editors for consideration.
 Ha! User-generated content, you say. Well, yes. But a wiki?
No. Because the operative word in the paragraph above is
suggest. Britannica users don’t have the ability or authority
to publish the edits they propose; only Britannica editors
can do that, and that’s the way it will stay.
 This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009
Encyclopedias 24

25. Teaching the encyclopedia
 Kentucky's Learning Goals and
Academic Expectations
 Academic Expectations: AE 1.1
 Students use reference tools such as
dictionaries, almanacs, encyclopedia
s, and computer reference programs
and research tools such as
interviews and surveys to find the
information they need to meet
specific demands, explore
interests, or solve specific problems.
Encyclopedias 25

26. A sample encyclopedia lesson
Encyclopedias 26