Encyclopedia
An
encyclopedia,
encyclopaedia or
encyclopædia, is a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on all branches of
knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge.
For a list of notable encyclopedias in history, see list of encyclopedias.General definition
Word history
The word comes from the Classical Greek , literally 'the things [i.e. education] of boys in a circle', meaning "a general education". Though the notion of a compendium of knowledge dates back thousands of years, the term was first used in the title of a book in 1541 by Joachimus Fortius Ringelbergius in the title-page of his
Lucubrationes vel potius absolutissima kyklopaideia . It was first used as a noun by the encyclopedist Pavao Skalic in the title of his book
Encyclopaedia seu orbis disciplinarum tam sacrarum quam prophanarum epistemon .
Several encyclopedias have names that include the term
-pedia, e.g. Banglapedia .
Characteristics
The encyclopedia as we recognize it today was developed from the
dictionary in the
18th century. A dictionary is primarily focused on
words and their definition, and typically provides limited information, , or background for the word defined. While it may offer a definition, it may leave the reader still lacking in understanding the meaning or significance of a term, and how the term relates to a broader field of knowledge.
To address those needs, an encyclopedia treats each subject in more depth and conveys the most relevant accumulated knowledge on that subject or
discipline, given the overall length of the particular work. An encyclopedia also often includes many
maps and
illustrations, as well as
bibliography and
statistics. Historically, both encyclopedias and dictionaries have been researched and written by well-educated, well-informed content experts.
Four major elements define an encyclopedia: its subject matter, its scope, its method of organization, and its method of production.
- Encyclopedias can be general, containing articles on topics in every field . General encyclopedias often contain guides on how to do a variety of things, as well as embedded dictionaries and gazetteers. They can also specialize in a particular field . There are also encyclopedias that cover a wide variety of topics from a particular cultural, ethnic, or national perspective, such as the Great Soviet Encyclopedia or Encyclopaedia Judaica is a 26-volume English-language encyclopedia [i] of the Jew [i]ish people ...
. - Works of encyclopedic scope aim to convey the important accumulated knowledge for their subject domain. Such works have been envisioned and attempted throughout much of human history, but the term encyclopedia was first used to refer to such works in the 16th century. The first general encyclopedias that succeeded in being both authoritative as well as encyclopedic in scope appeared in the 18th century. Every encyclopedic work is, of course, an abridged version of all knowledge, and works vary in the breadth of material and the depth of discussion. The target audience may influence the scope; a children's encyclopedia will be narrower than one for adults.
- Some systematic method of organization is essential to making an encyclopedia usable as a work of reference. There have historically been two main methods of organizing printed encyclopedias: the alphabetical method , or organization by hierarchical categories. The former method is today the most common by far, especially for general works. The fluidity of electronic media, however, allows new possibilities for multiple methods of organization of the same content. Further, electronic media offer previously unimaginable capabilities for search, indexing and cross reference. The epigraph from Horace on the title page of the 18th-century Encyclopédie suggests the importance of the structure of an encyclopedia: "What grace may be added to commonplace matters by the power of order and connection."
- As modern multimedia and the information age have evolved, they have had an ever-increasing effect on the collection, verification, summation, and presentation of information of all kinds. Projects such as h2g2 and Wikipedia are examples of new forms of the encyclopedia as information retrieval becomes simpler.
Some works titled "dictionaries" are actually more similar to encyclopedias, especially those concerned with a particular field . The
Macquarie Dictionary is a dictionary [i] of Australian English [i]. ...
,
Australia's national dictionary, became an encyclopedic dictionary after its first edition in recognition of the use of proper nouns in common communication, and the words derived from such proper nouns.
History and modernity
Early encyclopedic works
The idea of collecting all of the world's knowledge into a single work was an elusive vision for centuries. Many writers of antiquity attempted to write comprehensively about all human knowledge. One of the most significant of these early encyclopedists was
Pliny the Elder , who wrote the
Naturalis Historia , a 37-volume account of the natural world that was extremely popular in western Europe for much of the Middle Ages.
The first Christian encyclopedia was Cassiodorus'
Institutiones which inspired St.
Isidore of Seville's
Etymologiae is an encyclopedia [i] compiled by
...
which became the most influential encyclopedia of the
Early Middle Ages. The
Bibliotheca by the
Patriarch Photius was the earliest
Byzantine work that could be called an encyclopedia. Bartholomeus de Glanvilla's
De proprietatibus rerum was the most widely read and quoted encyclopedia in the
High Middle Ages while
Vincent of Beauvais's
Speculum Majus was the most ambitious encyclopedia in the late-medieval period at over 3 million words.
The early Muslim compilations of knowledge in the Middle Ages included many comprehensive works, and much development of what we now call
scientific method, historical method, and citation. Notable works include
Abu Bakr al-Razi's encyclopedia of science, the Mutazilite
Al-Kindi's prolific output of 270 books, and
Ibn Sina's medical encyclopedia, which was a standard reference work for centuries. Also notable are works of universal history from Asharites,
al-Tabri, al-Masudi, the Brethren of Sincerity's
Encyclopedia, Ibn Rustah, al-Athir, and
Ibn Khaldun, whose Muqadimmah contains cautions regarding trust in written records that remain wholly applicable today. These scholars had an incalculable influence on methods of research and editing, due in part to the Islamic practice of isnad which emphasized fidelity to written record, checking sources, and skeptical inquiry.
Book by category may be seen as the one of the pioneers of the moderndays encyclopedia. The
Chinese emperor Yongle of the
Ming Dynasty oversaw the compilation of the
Yongle Encyclopedia, one of the largest encyclopedias in history, which was completed in 1408 and comprised over 11,000 handwritten volumes, of which only about 400 remain today. In the succeeding dynasty, emperor
Qianlong of the
Qing Dynasty personally composed 40,000 poems as part of a 4.7 million page library in 4 divisions, including thousands of essays. It is instructive to compare his title for this knowledge,
Watching the waves in a Sacred Sea to a Western-style title for all knowledge. Encyclopedic works, both in imitation of Chinese encyclopedias and as independent works of their own origin, have been known to exist in Japan since the ninth century CE.
These works were all hand copied and thus rarely available, beyond wealthy patrons or monastic men of learning: they were expensive, and usually written for those extending knowledge rather than those using it .
Encyclopedias from the 18th to early 20th century
The beginnings of the modern idea of the general-purpose, widely distributed printed encyclopedia precede the 18th-century encyclopedists. However, Chambers'
Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences was an encyclopedia [i] published by Ephraim Chambers [i]...
, and the
Encyclopédie was an early encyclopedia [i] ...
,
Encyclopædia Britannica was first published in 1768–1771 as Encyclopdia Britannica, or, ...
and the
Conversations-Lexikon is a German-language [i] encyclopedia [i] published by Brockhaus [i] ...
were the first to realize the form we would recognize today, with a comprehensive scope of topics, discussed in depth and organized in an accessible, systematic method.
The term encyclopaedia was coined by fifteenth century humanists who misread copies of their texts of Pliny and Quintilian, and combined the two Greek words
enkuklios paideia into one word.
The English physician and philosopher Sir
Thomas Browne specifically employed the word
encyclopaedia as early as 1646 in the preface to the reader to describe his
Pseudodoxia Epidemica or
Vulgar Errors, a series of refutations of common errors of his age. Browne structured his encyclopaedia upon the time-honoured schemata of the Renaissance, the so-called 'scale of creation' which ascends a hierarchical ladder via the mineral, vegetable, animal, human, planetary and cosmological worlds. Browne's compendium went through no less than five editions, each revised and augmented, the last edition appearing in 1672.
Pseudodoxia Epidemica found itself upon the bookshelves of many educated European readers for throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries it was translated into the
French,
Dutch and
German languages as well as
Latin.
John Harris is often credited with introducing the now-familiar alphabetic format in 1704 with his English
Lexicon technicum. Organized alphabetically, it sought to explain not merely the terms used in the arts and sciences, but the arts and sciences themselves.
Sir Isaac Newton contributed his only published work on chemistry to the second volume of 1710. Its emphasis was on science and, at about 1200 pages, its scope was more that of an encyclopedic dictionary than a true encyclopedia. Harris himself considered it a dictionary; the work is one of the first technical dictionaries in any language.
Ephraim Chambers published his
Cyclopaedia was an encyclopedia [i] published by Ephraim Chambers [i]...
in 1728. It included a broad scope of subjects, used an alphabetic arrangement, relied on many different contributors and included the innovation of cross-referencing other sections within articles. Chambers has been referred to as the father of the modern encyclopedia for this two-volume work.
A French translation of Chambers' work inspired the
Encyclopédie was an early encyclopedia [i] ...
, perhaps the most famous early encyclopedia, notable for its scope, the quality of some contributions, and its political and cultural impact in the years leading up to the
French revolution. The
Encyclopédie was edited by
Jean le Rond d'Alembert and
Denis Diderot and published in 17 volumes of articles, issued from 1751 to 1765, and 11 volumes of illustrations, issued from 1762 to 1772. Five volumes of supplementary material and a two volume index, supervised by other editors, were issued from 1776 to 1780 by Charles Joseph Panckoucke.
The
Encyclopédie in turn inspired the venerable
Encyclopædia Britannica was first published in 1768–1771 as Encyclopdia Britannica, or, ...
, which had a modest beginning in Scotland: the first edition, issued between 1768 and 1771, had just three hastily completed volumes - A-B, C-L, and M-Z - with a total of 2,391 pages. By 1797, when the third edition was completed, it had been expanded to 18 volumes addressing a full range of topics, with articles contributed by a range of authorities on their subjects.
The
Conversations-Lexikon is a German-language [i] encyclopedia [i] published by Brockhaus [i] ...
was published in
Leipzig from 1796 to 1808, in 6 volumes. Paralleling other 18th century encyclopedias, the scope was expanded beyond that of earlier publications, in an effort to become comprehensive. But the work was intended not for scientific use, but to give the results of research and discovery in a simple and popular form without extended details. This format, a contrast to the
Encyclopædia Britannica was first published in 1768–1771 as Encyclopdia Britannica, or, ...
, was widely imitated by later 19th century encyclopedias in Britain, the United States, France, Spain, Italy and other countries. Of the influential late 18th century and early 19th century encyclopedias, the
Conversations-Lexikon is perhaps most similar in form to today's encyclopedias.
The early years of the
19th century saw a flowering of encyclopedia publishing in the United Kingdom, Europe and America. In England
Rees's Cyclopaedia contains an enormous amount in information about the industrial and scientific revolutions of the time. A feature of these publications is the high-quality illustrations made by engravers like Wilson Lowry of art work supplied by specialist draftsmen like John Farey, Jr. Encyclopaedias were published in
Scotland, as a result of the Scottish Enlightenment, for education there was of a higher standard than in the rest of the
United Kingdom.
The 17-volume
Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle and its supplements were published in
France from 1866 to 1890.
Encyclopædia Britannica appeared in various editions throughout the century, and the growth of popular education and the
Mechanics Institutes, spearheaded by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge led to the production of the
Penny Cyclopaedia, as its title suggests issued in weekly numbers at a penny each like a
newspaper.
In the early 20th century, the
Encyclopædia Britannica reached its eleventh edition, and inexpensive encyclopedias such as
Harmsworth's Encyclopaedia and
Everyman's Encyclopaedia were common.
Modern encyclopedias
In the United States, the 1950s and 1960s saw the rise of several large popular encyclopedias, often sold on installment plans. The best known of these were World Book and Funk and Wagnalls.
The second half of the
20th century also saw the publication of several encyclopedias that were notable for synthesizing important topics in specific fields, often by means of new works authored by significant researchers. Such encyclopedias included
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy , and
Elsevier's Handbooks In Economics series. Encyclopedias of at least one volume in size exist for most if not all
Academic disciplines, including, typically, such narrow topics such as bioethics and
African American history.
By the late 20th century, encyclopedias were being published on
CD-ROMs for use with personal computers.
Microsoft's
Encarta is a digital [i] multimedia [i] encyclopedia [i] published and updated frequently by Microsoft Corporation [i] ...
was a landmark example, as it had no print version. Articles were supplemented with video and audio files as well as numerous high-quality images. Similar encyclopedias were also being published online, and made available by subscription.
Traditional encyclopedias are written by a number of employed text writers, usually people with an academic degree, but the interactive nature of the Internet allowed for the creation of collaborative projects such as
Nupedia, Everything2, Open Site, and
Wikipedia, some of which allowed anyone to add or improve content. By late 2005, Wikipedia had produced over two million articles in more than 80 languages with content licensed under the
copyleft GNU Free Documentation License. However Wikipedia's articles are not necessarily peer reviewed and many of those articles may be considered to be of a trivial nature. Concerns have been raised as to the accuracy of information generated through open source projects generally.
Encyclopedias are essentially derivative from what has gone before, and particularly in the 19th century, copyright infringement was common among encyclopedia editors. However, modern encyclopedias are not merely larger compendia, including all that came before them. To make space for modern topics, valuable material of historic use regularly had to be discarded, at least before the advent of digital encyclopedias. Moreover, the opinions and worldviews of a particular generation can be observed in the encyclopedic writing of the time. For these reasons, old encyclopedias are a useful source of historical information, especially for a record of changes in science and technology.
Encyclopedia manufacture
The encyclopedia's hierarchical structure and evolving nature is particularly adaptable to a disk-based or on-line
computer format, and all major printed multi-subject encyclopedias had moved to this method of delivery by the end of the 20th century. Disk-based publications have the advantage of being cheaply produced and extremely portable. Additionally, they can include media which are impossible to store in the printed format, such as
animations,
audio, and
video. Hyperlinking between conceptually related items is also a significant benefit. On-line encyclopedias, like
Wikipedia, offer the additional advantage of being dynamic: new information can be presented almost immediately, rather than waiting for the next release of a static format . Many printed encyclopedias traditionally published annual supplemental volumes or "yearbooks" to provide updates on recent events between new editions, as a partial solution to the problem of staying up to date, but this of course requires the reader check both the main volumes and the supplemental volume or volumes. Some disk-based encyclopedias offer subscription-based access to online updates, which are then integrated with the content already on the user's hard disk in a manner not possible with a printed encyclopedia.
Information in a printed encyclopedia necessarily needs some form of hierarchical structure. Traditionally, the method employed is to present the information ordered alphabetically by the article title. However with the advent of dynamic electronic formats the need to impose a pre-determined structure is unnecessary. Nonetheless, most electronic encyclopedias still offer a range of organizational strategies for the articles, such as by subject area or alphabetically.
CD-ROM and internet-based encyclopedias also offer greater search abilities than printed versions. While the printed versions rely on indexes to assist with searching for topics, those computer accessible versions allow searching through article text for any keyword.
Notes
Sources and references
- Collison, Robert, Encyclopaedias: Their History Throughout the Ages, 2nd ed.
- Darnton, Robert, The business of enlightenment : a publishing history of the Encyclopédie, 1775-1800 ISBN 0-674-08785-2
- Kafker, Frank A. , Notable encyclopedias of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: nine predecessors of the Encyclopédie ISBN
- Kafker, Frank A. , Notable encyclopedias of the late eighteenth century: eleven successors of the Encyclopédie ISBN
- Rozenzweig, Roy. "Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past." Journal of American History Volume 93, Number 1 : 117-46. Also available online from the Center for History and New Media.
- Walsh, S. Padraig, Anglo-American general encyclopedias: a historical bibliography, 1703-1967 Includes a historical bibliography, arranged alphabetically, with brief notes on the history of many encyclopedias; a chronology; indexes by editor and publisher; bibliography; and 18 pages of notes from a 1965 American Library Association symposium on encyclopedias.
- Yeo, Richard R., ISBN 0-521-65191-3
See also
- List of encyclopedias discusses many historical, general and specialized encyclopedias.
- Encyclopedic dictionary
- Encyclopedist
Other types of Reference works:
Theory:
- History of science and technology
- Library and information science
- Lexicography
External links
- University of Wisconsin - Stout listing by category
- Online Encyclopedia of the Low Countries.
Historical encyclopedias available online
- , 1728, with the 1753 supplement; superbly digitized at the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center. Note the plates at the end of Supplement volume II.
- , 1851, Francis Lieber ed. at the University of Michigan Making of America site
- , 11th ed., 1911, at the LoveToKnow™ site.
