Encyclopedia

An encyclopedia or encyclopaedia
(British English) is a reference work or
compendium providing summaries of
knowledge either from all branches or from
a particular field or discipline.[1]
Encyclopedias are divided into articles or
entries that are often arranged
alphabetically by article name[2] and
sometimes by thematic categories.
Encyclopedia entries are longer and more
detailed than those in most dictionaries.[2]
Generally speaking, unlike dictionary
entries—which focus on linguistic
information about words, such as their
etymology, meaning, pronunciation, use,
and grammatical forms—encyclopedia
The volumes of the 15th edition of
articles focus on factual information
Encyclopædia Britannica (plus the volume
concerning the subject named in the
for the year 2002) span two bookshelves in
article's title.[3][4][5][6]
a library.

Encyclopedias have existed for around

2,000 years and have evolved considerably
during that time as regards to language (written in a
major international or a vernacular language), size
(few or many volumes), intent (presentation of a
global or a limited range of knowledge), cultural
perspective (authoritative, ideological, didactic,
utilitarian), authorship (qualifications, style),
readership (education level, background, interests,
capabilities), and the technologies available for their
production and distribution (hand-written
manuscripts, small or large print runs, Internet). As a
valued source of reliable information compiled by
experts, printed versions found a prominent place in
libraries, schools and other educational institutions.

The appearance of digital and open-source versions in

the 21st century has vastly expanded the accessibility,
Title page of Lucubrationes,
authorship, readership, and variety of encyclopedia 1541 edition, one of the first
entries. books to use a variant of the
word encyclopedia in the title

Contents
Etymology
Two Greek words misunderstood as one
 Sixteenth century usage of the compounded
word
The suffix -p(a)edia
Contemporary usage
Characteristics
History
Ancient times
Middle Ages
Renaissance
Traditional encyclopedias
Rise of digital and online encyclopedias
Largest encyclopedias
See also
Notes
References
External links

Etymology
Indeed, the purpose of an
Two Greek words misunderstood as encyclopedia is to collect
one knowledge disseminated around
the globe; to set forth its general
system to the men with whom we
The word encyclopedia (encyclo|pedia) comes live, and transmit it to those who
from the Koine Greek ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία,[8] will come after us, so that the work
transliterated enkyklios paedia, meaning of preceding centuries will not
"general education" from enkyklios (ἐγκύκλιος), become useless to the centuries to
come; and so that our offspring,
meaning "circular, recurrent, required regularly, becoming better instructed, will at
general"[9] and paedia (παιδεία), meaning the same time become more
"education, rearing of a child"; together, the virtuous and happy, and that we
phrase literally translates as "complete should not die without having
instruction" or "complete knowledge".[10] rendered a service to the human
race in the future years to come.
However, the two separate words were reduced
to a single word due to a scribal error[11] by
Diderot[7]
copyists of a Latin manuscript edition of
Quintillian in 1470.[12] The copyists took this
phrase to be a single Greek word,
enkyklopaedia, with the same meaning, and this spurious Greek word became the
New Latin word "encyclopaedia", which in turn came into English. Because of this
compounded word, fifteenth century readers and since have often, and incorrectly,
thought that the Roman authors Quintillian and Pliny described an ancient genre.[13]

Sixteenth century usage of the compounded word

In the sixteenth century there was a level of
ambiguity as to how to use this new word. As several
titles illustrate, there was not a settled notion about
its spelling nor its status as a noun. For example:
Jacobus Philomusus's Margarita philosophica
encyclopaediam exhibens (1508); Johannes
Aventinus's Encyclopedia orbisque doctrinarum, hoc
est omnium artium, scientiarum, ipsius philosophiae
index ac divisio; Joachimus Fortius Ringelbergius's
Lucubrationes vel potius absolutissima kyklopaideia
(1538, 1541); Paul Skalich's Encyclopaediæ, seu orbis
disciplinarum, tam sacrarum quam prophanarum,
epistemon (1559); Gregor Reisch's Margarita
philosophica (1503, retitled Encyclopaedia in 1583);
and Samuel Eisenmenger's Cyclopaedia Paracelsica
(1585).[15]
Title page of Skalich's
There have been two examples of the oldest Encyclopaediæ, seu orbis
vernacular use of the compounded word. In disciplinarum, tam sacrarum
approximately 1490, Franciscus Puccius wrote a quam prophanarum, epistemon
letter to Politianus thanking him for his Miscellanea, from 1559, first clear use of the
calling it an encyclopedia.[16] More commonly, word encyclopaedia in the
François Rabelais is cited for his use of the term in title.[14]
Pantagruel (1532).[17][18]

The suffix -p(a)edia

Several encyclopedias have names that include the suffix -p(a)edia, to mark the text
as belonging to the genre of encyclopedias. An example is Banglapedia (on matters
relevant for Bangladesh).

Contemporary usage

Today in English, the word is most commonly spelled encyclopedia, though

encyclopaedia (from encyclopædia) is also used in Britain.[19]

Characteristics
The modern encyclopedia was developed from the dictionary in the 18th century.
Historically, both encyclopedias and dictionaries have been researched and written
by well-educated, well-informed content experts, but they are significantly different
in structure. A dictionary is a linguistic work which primarily focuses on alphabetical
listing of words and their definitions. Synonymous words and those related by the
subject matter are to be found scattered around the dictionary, giving no obvious
place for in-depth treatment. Thus, a dictionary typically provides limited
information, analysis or background for the word defined. While it may offer a
definition, it may leave the reader lacking in understanding the meaning,
significance or limitations of a term, and how the term relates to a broader field of
knowledge. An encyclopedia is, theoretically, not written in order to convince,
although one of its goals is indeed to convince its reader of its own veracity.
To address those needs, an encyclopedia
article is typically not limited to simple
definitions, and is not limited to defining an
individual word, but provides a more
extensive meaning for a subject or
discipline. In addition to defining and listing
synonymous terms for the topic, the article
is able to treat the topic's more extensive
meaning in more depth and convey the most
relevant accumulated knowledge on that
subject. An encyclopedia article also often Quality dimensions of traditional
encyclopedias, web 2.0 and Wikipedia[20]
includes many maps and illustrations, as
well as bibliography and statistics.

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 (the

English-language Encyclopædia Britannica and German Brockhaus are well-known
examples). General encyclopedias may contain guides on how to do a variety of
things, as well as embedded dictionaries and gazetteers. 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.
Works of encyclopedic scope aim to convey the important accumulated knowledge
for their subject domain, such as an encyclopedia of medicine, philosophy or law.
Works vary in the breadth of material and the depth of discussion, depending on
the target audience.
Some systematic method of organization is essential to making an encyclopedia
usable for reference. There have historically been two main methods of organizing
printed encyclopedias: the alphabetical method (consisting of a number of
separate articles, organized in alphabetical order) and organization by hierarchical
categories. The former method is today the more common, 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 new 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, new methods have
emerged for the collection, verification, summation, and presentation of
information of all kinds. Projects such as Everything2, Encarta, h2g2, and Wikipedia
are examples of new forms of the encyclopedia as information retrieval becomes
simpler. The method of production for an encyclopedia historically has been
supported in both for-profit and non-profit contexts. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia
mentioned above was entirely state sponsored, while the Britannica was supported
as a for-profit institution. By comparison, Wikipedia is supported by volunteers
contributing in a non-profit environment under the organization of the Wikimedia
Foundation.
Some works entitled "dictionaries" are actually similar to encyclopedias, especially
those concerned with a particular field (such as the Dictionary of the Middle Ages,
the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, and Black's Law Dictionary). The
Macquarie Dictionary, 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.

There are some broad differences between encyclopedias and dictionaries. Most
noticeably, encyclopedia articles are longer, fuller and more thorough than entries in
most general-purpose dictionaries.[2][21] There are differences in content as well.
Generally speaking, dictionaries provide linguistic information about words
themselves, while encyclopedias focus more on the thing for which those words
stand.[3][4][5][6] Thus, while dictionary entries are inextricably fixed to the word
described, encyclopedia articles can be given a different entry name. As such,
dictionary entries are not fully translatable into other languages, but encyclopedia
articles can be.[3]

In practice, however, the distinction is not concrete, as there is no clear-cut

difference between factual, "encyclopedic" information and linguistic information
such as appears in dictionaries.[5][21][22] Thus encyclopedias may contain material
that is also found in dictionaries, and vice versa.[22] In particular, dictionary entries
often contain factual information about the thing named by the word.[21][22]

Information in traditional encyclopedias can be assessed by measures related to such

quality dimension as authority, completeness, format, objectivity, style, timeliness
and uniqueness.[20]

History
Encyclopedias have progressed from written form in antiquity, to print in modern
times. Today they can also be distributed and displayed electronically.

Ancient times

One of the earliest encyclopedic works to have survived to modern times is the
Naturalis Historiae of Pliny the Elder, a Roman statesman living in the first century
AD. He compiled a work of 37 chapters covering natural history, architecture,
medicine, geography, geology, and other aspects of the world around him. He stated
in the preface that he had compiled 20,000 facts from 2000 works by over 200
authors, and added many others from his own experience. The work was published
around AD 77–79, although Pliny probably never finished editing the work before his
death in the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.[23]

Middle Ages

Isidore of Seville, one of the greatest scholars of the early Middle Ages, is widely
recognized for writing the first encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, the Etymologiae
(The Etymologies) or Origines (around 630), in which he compiled a sizable portion
of the learning available at his time, both ancient and contemporary. The work has
448 chapters in 20 volumes, and is valuable because
of the quotes and fragments of texts by other authors
that would have been lost had he not collected them.

The most popular encyclopedia of the Carolingian Age

was the De universo or De rerum naturis by Rabanus
Maurus, written about 830; it was based on
Etymologiae.[24]

The encyclopedia of Suda, a massive 10th-century

Byzantine encyclopedia, had 30 000 entries, many
drawing from ancient sources that have since been
lost, and often derived from medieval Christian
compilers. The text was arranged alphabetically with
some slight deviations from common vowel order and
place in the Greek alphabet.

The early Muslim compilations of knowledge in the

Middle Ages included many comprehensive works.
Around year 960, the Brethren of Purity of Basra
were engaged in their Encyclopedia of the Brethren
Naturalis Historiae, 1669
of Purity.[25] Notable works include Abu Bakr al-
edition, title page
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 (or
sociology) from Asharites, al-Tabri, al-Masudi, Tabari's History of the Prophets and
Kings, Ibn Rustah, al-Athir, and Ibn Khaldun, whose Muqadimmah contains cautions
regarding trust in written records that remain wholly applicable today.

The enormous encyclopedic work in China of the Four Great Books of Song, compiled
by the 11th century during the early Song dynasty (960–1279), was a massive
literary undertaking for the time. The last encyclopedia of the four, the Prime
Tortoise of the Record Bureau, amounted to 9.4  million Chinese characters in 1000
written volumes. The 'period of the encyclopedists' spanned from the tenth to
seventeenth centuries, during which the government of China employed hundreds of
scholars to assemble massive encyclopedias.[26] The largest of which is the Yongle
Encyclopedia; it was completed in 1408 and consisted of almost 23,000 folio volumes
in manuscript form.[26]

In late medieval Europe, several authors had the ambition of compiling the sum of
human knowledge in a certain field or overall, for example Bartholomew of England,
Vincent of Beauvais, Radulfus Ardens, Sydrac, Brunetto Latini, Giovanni da
Sangiminiano, Pierre Bersuire. Some were women, like Hildegard of Bingen and
Herrad of Landsberg. The most successful of those publications were the Speculum
maius (Great Mirror) of Vincent of Beauvais and the De proprietatibus rerum (On the
Properties of Things) by Bartholomew of England. The latter was translated (or
adapted) into French, Provençal, Italian, English, Flemish, Anglo-Norman, Spanish,
and German during the Middle Ages. Both were written in the middle of the 13th
century. No medieval encyclopedia bore the title Encyclopaedia – they were often
called On nature (De natura, De naturis rerum), Mirror (Speculum maius, Speculum
universale), Treasure (Trésor).[27]
Renaissance

Medieval encyclopedias were all hand-copied and

thus available mostly to wealthy patrons or monastic
men of learning; they were expensive, and usually
written for those extending knowledge rather than
those using it.[28]

During the Renaissance, the creation of printing

allowed a wider diffusion of encyclopedias and every
scholar could have his or her own copy. The De
expetendis et fugiendis rebus by Giorgio Valla was Anatomy in Margarita
posthumously printed in 1501 by Aldo Manuzio in Philosophica, 1565
Venice. This work followed the traditional scheme of
liberal arts. However, Valla added the translation of
ancient Greek works on mathematics (firstly by Archimedes), newly discovered and
translated. The Margarita Philosophica by Gregor Reisch, printed in 1503, was a
complete encyclopedia explaining the seven liberal arts.

The term encyclopaedia was coined by 16th-century humanists who misread copies
of their texts of Pliny[29] and Quintilian,[30] and combined the two Greek words
"enkyklios paedia" into one word, έγκυκλοπαιδεία.[31] The phrase enkyklios paedia
(ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία) was used by Plutarch and the Latin word encyclopaedia came
from him.

The first work titled in this way was the Encyclopedia orbisque doctrinarum, hoc est
omnium artium, scientiarum, ipsius philosophiae index ac divisio written by Johannes
Aventinus in 1517.

The English physician and philosopher, Sir Thomas Browne used the word
'encyclopaedia' in 1646 in the preface to the reader (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/ps
eudodoxia/pseudo1.html) to define his Pseudodoxia Epidemica, a major work of the
17th-century scientific revolution. Browne structured his encyclopaedia upon the
time-honoured scheme of the Renaissance, the so-called 'scale of creation' which
ascends through the mineral, vegetable, animal, human, planetary, and cosmological
worlds. Pseudodoxia Epidemica was a European best-seller, translated into French,
Dutch, and German as well as Latin it went through no fewer than five editions, each
revised and augmented, the last edition appearing in 1672.

Financial, commercial, legal, and intellectual factors changed the size of

encyclopedias. During the Renaissance, middle classes had more time to read and
encyclopedias helped them to learn more. Publishers wanted to increase their output
so some countries like Germany started selling books missing alphabetical sections,
to publish faster. Also, publishers could not afford all the resources by themselves, so
multiple publishers would come together with their resources to create better
encyclopedias. When publishing at the same rate became financially impossible, they
turned to subscriptions and serial publications. This was risky for publishers because
they had to find people that would pay all upfront or make payments. When this
worked, capital would rise and there would be a steady income for encyclopedias.
Later, rivalry grew, causing copyright to occur due to weak underdeveloped laws.
Some publishers would copy another publisher's work to produce an encyclopedia
faster and cheaper so consumers did not have to pay a lot and they would sell more.
Encyclopedias made it to where middle-class citizens could basically have a small
library in their own house. Europeans were becoming more curious about their
society around them causing them to revolt against their government.[32]

Traditional encyclopedias

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 (1728), and the Encyclopédie of
Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1751
onwards), as well as Encyclopædia Britannica and the
Conversations-Lexikon, 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. Chambers, in 1728,
followed the earlier lead of John Harris's Lexicon
Technicum of 1704 and later editions (see also
below); this work was by its title and content "A
Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences:
Explaining not only the Terms of Art, but the Arts
Themselves".

Popular and affordable encyclopedias such as

Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia and the Encyclopédie, 1773
Children's Encyclopaedia appeared in the early
1920s.

In the United States, the 1950s and 1960s saw the introduction of several large
popular encyclopedias, often sold on installment plans. The best known of these were
World Book and Funk and Wagnalls. As many as 90% were sold door to door. Jack
Lynch says in his book You Could Look It Up that encyclopedia salespeople were so
common that they became the butt of jokes. He describes their sales pitch saying,
“They were selling not books but a lifestyle, a future, a promise of social mobility." A
1961 World Book ad said, “You are holding your family’s future in your hands right
now,” while showing a feminine hand holding an order form.[33]

The second half of the 20th century also saw the

proliferation of specialized encyclopedias that
compiled topics in specific fields, mainly to support
specific industries and professionals. This trend has
continued. Encyclopedias of at least one volume in
size now exist for most if not all academic disciplines,
including such narrow topics such as bioethics.
1913 advertisement for
Rise of digital and online encyclopedias Encyclopædia Britannica, the
oldest and one of the largest
contemporary English
By the late 20th century, encyclopedias were being
encyclopedias
published on CD-ROMs for use with personal
computers. Microsoft's Encarta, published between
1993 and 2009, was a landmark example as it had no printed equivalent. Articles
were supplemented with both video and audio files as well as numerous high-quality
images.[34]

Digital technologies and online crowdsourcing allowed encyclopedias to break away

from traditional limitations in both breath and depth of topics covered. Wikipedia, a
crowd-sourced, multilingual, open licence, free online encyclopedia supported by the
non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and open source MediaWiki software opened in
2001. Unlike commercial online encyclopedias such as Encyclopædia Britannica
Online, which are written by experts, Wikipedia is collaboratively created and
maintained by volunteer editors, organized by collaboratively agreed guidelines and
user-roles. Most contributors use pseudonyms and stay anonymous. Content is
therefore reviewed, checked, kept or removed based on its own intrinsic value and
external sources supporting it.

Traditional encyclopedias' reliability, on their side, stand upon authorship and

associated professional expertise. Many academics, teachers, and journalists
rejected and continue to reject open, crowd sourced encyclopedias, especially
Wikipedia, as a reliable source of information, and Wikipedia is itself not a reliable
source according to its own standards because of its openly editable and anonymous
crowdsourcing model.[35] A study by Nature in 2005 found that Wikipedia's science
articles were roughly comparable in accuracy to those of Encyclopædia Britannica,
containing the same number of serious errors and about 1/3 more minor factual
inaccuracies, but that Wikipedia's writing tended to be confusing and less
readable.[36] Encyclopædia Britannica rejected the study's conclusions, deeming the
study fatally flawed.[37] As of February 2014, Wikipedia had 18  billion page views
and nearly 500  million unique visitors each month.[38] Critics argue Wikipedia
exhibits systemic bias.[39][40]

There are several much smaller, usually more specialized, encyclopedias on various
themes, sometimes dedicated to a specific geographic region or time period.[41] One
example is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Largest encyclopedias

As of the early 2020s, the largest encyclopedias are the Chinese Baidu Baike
(16  million articles) and Hudong Baike (13  million), followed by Wikipedias for
English (6  million), German (+2  million) and French (+2  million).[42] More than a
dozen other Wikipedias have 1  million articles or more, of variable quality and
length.[42] Measuring an encyclopedia's size by its articles is an ambiguous method
since the online Chinese encyclopedias cited above allow multiple articles on the
same topic, while Wikipedias accept only one single common article per topic but
allow automated creation of nearly empty articles.

See also
Bibliography of encyclopedias Fictitious entry
Biographical dictionary History of science and technology
Encyclopedic knowledge Lexicography
Encyclopedism Library science
 Lists of encyclopedias Speculum literature
Thesaurus

Notes
1. "Encyclopedia" (https://web.archive.org/web/20070803182506/http://library.rcc.ed
u/riverside/glossaryoflibraryterms.htm#e). Archived from the original (http://library.
rcc.edu/riverside/glossaryoflibraryterms.htm#e) on August 3, 2007. Glossary of
Library Terms. Riverside City College, Digital Library/Learning Resource Center.
Retrieved on: November 17, 2007.
2. Hartmann, R. R. K.; James, Gregory; James, Gregory (1998). Dictionary of
Lexicography (https://books.google.com/books?id=49NZ12icE-QC&pg=PA49&dq
=%22encyclopedic+dictionary%22%2Bencyclopedia&q=%22encyclopedic%20dicti
onary%22%2Bencyclopedia). Routledge. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-415-14143-7. Retrieved
July 27, 2010.
3. Béjoint, Henri (2000). Modern Lexicography (https://books.google.com/books?id=DJ
8gwtomUpMC&lpg=PA30&dq=lexicography%20translated%20encyclopedia%20dic
tionary&pg=PA30), pp. 30–31. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-829951-6
4. "Encyclopaedia" (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/186603/encyclopaedi
a). Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved July 27, 2010. "An English lexicographer,
H.W. Fowler, wrote in the preface to the first edition (1911) of The Concise Oxford
Dictionary of Current English language that a dictionary is concerned with the uses
of words and phrases and with giving information about the things for which they
stand only so far as current use of the words depends upon knowledge of those
things. The emphasis in an encyclopedia is much more on the nature of the things
for which the words and phrases stand."
5. Hartmann, R. R. K.; Gregory, James (1998). Dictionary of Lexicography (https://boo
ks.google.com/books?id=49NZ12icE-QC&pg=PA49&dq=%22encyclopedic+diction
ary%22%2Bencyclopedia&q=%22encyclopedic%20dictionary%22%2Bencyclopedi
a). Routledge. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-415-14143-7. Retrieved July 27, 2010. "In contrast
with linguistic information, encyclopedia material is more concerned with the
description of objective realities than the words or phrases that refer to them. In
practice, however, there is no hard and fast boundary between factual and lexical
knowledge."
6. Cowie, Anthony Paul (2009). The Oxford History of English Lexicography, Volume I
(https://books.google.com/books?id=nhnVF9Or_wMC&printsec=frontcover&q).
Oxford University Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-415-14143-7. Retrieved August 17,
2010. "An 'encyclopedia' (encyclopaedia) usually gives more information than a
dictionary; it explains not only the words but also the things and concepts referred
to by the words."
7. Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert Encyclopédie. (http://quod.lib.umich.ed
u/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=did;cc=did;idno=did2222.0000.004;rgn=main;view=text)
University of Michigan Library:Scholarly Publishing Office and DLXS. Retrieved on:
November 17, 2007
8. Ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atex
t%3A2007.01.0060%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D10%3Asection%3D1),
Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 1.10.1, at Perseus Project
9. ἐγκύκλιος (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A199
9.04.0057%3Aentry%3De%29gku%2Fklios), Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A
Greek–English Lexicon, at Perseus Project
10. παιδεία (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.
04.0057%3Aentry%3Dpaidei%2Fa), Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek–
English Lexicon, at Perseus Project
11. According to some accounts, such as the American Heritage Dictionary (http://ww
w.thefreedictionary.com/encyclopedia) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/2017
0819022705/http://www.thefreedictionary.com/encyclopedia) August 19, 2017, at
the Wayback Machine, copyists of Latin manuscripts took this phrase to be a single
Greek word, ἐγκυκλοπαιδεία enkyklopaedia.
12. Franklin-Brown, Mary (2012). Reading the world : encyclopedic writing in the
scholastic age. Chicago London: The University of Chicago Press. p. 8.
ISBN 9780226260709.
13. König, Jason (2013). Encyclopaedism from antiquity to the Renaissance. New York:
Cambridge University Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-107-03823-3.
14. Yeo, Richard (2001). Encyclopaedic visions : scientific dictionaries and
enlightenment culture. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 6.
ISBN 978-0521152921.
15. Harris-McCoy, Daniel (2008). Varieties of encyclopedism in the early Roman
Empire: Vitruvius, Pliny the Elder, Artemidorus (Ph.D). University of Pennsylvania.
p. 12. ProQuest 304510158 (https://search.proquest.com/docview/304510158).
16. Harris-McCoy 2008, p. 11–12.
17. Roest, Bert (1997). "Compilation as Theme and Praxis in Franciscan Universal
Chronicles". In Peter Binkley (ed.). Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts: Proceedings of
the Second Comers Congress, Groningen, 1 – July 4, 1996. BRILL. p. 213. ISBN 90-
04-10830-0.
18. Carey, Sorcha (2003). "Two Strategies of Encyclopaedism". Pliny's Catalogue of
Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History. Oxford University Press. p. 17.
ISBN 978-0-19-925913-7.
19. "encyclopaedia" (http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/61848?redirectedFrom=encyclop
aedia#eid) (online). Oxford English Dictionary (OED.com), Oxford University Press.
Retrieved February 18, 2012.
20. Lewoniewski, Włodzimierz; Węcel, Krzysztof; Abramowicz, Witold (2019).
"Multilingual Ranking of Wikipedia Articles with Quality and Popularity Assessment
in Different Topics". Computers. 8 (3): 60. doi:10.3390/computers8030060 (https://
doi.org/10.3390%2Fcomputers8030060).
21. Hartmann, R. R. K.; James, Gregory; James, Gregory (1998). Dictionary of
Lexicography (https://books.google.com/books?id=49NZ12icE-QC&pg=PA49&dq
=%22encyclopedic+dictionary%22%2Bencyclopedia&q=%22encyclopedic%20dicti
onary%22%2Bencyclopedia). Routledge. pp. 48–49. ISBN 978-0-415-14143-7.
Retrieved July 27, 2010. "Usually these two aspects overlap – encyclopedic
information being difficult to distinguish from linguistic information – and
dictionaries attempt to capture both in the explanation of a meaning ..."
22. Béjoint, Henri (2000). Modern Lexicography. Oxford University Press. p. 31.
ISBN 978-0-19-829951-6. "The two types, as we have seen, are not easily
differentiated; encyclopedias contain information that is also to be found in
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23. Naturalis Historia
24. Kaske, Robert Earl; Groos, Arthur; Twomey, Michael W.; Studies, University of
Toronto Centre for Medieval (1988). Medieval Christian Literary Imagery: A Guide to
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cover&dq=De+universo+or+De+rerum+naturis+by+Rabanus+Maurus&q=De+un
iverso+or+De+rerum+naturis+by+Rabanus+Maurus). University of Toronto Press.
ISBN 978-0-8020-2636-1.
25. P.D. Wightman (1953), The Growth of Scientific Ideas
26. Murray, Stuart (2009). The library : an illustrated history (https://archive.org/detail
s/libraryillustrat0000murr). New York, NY: Skyhorse Pub. ISBN 9781602397064.
OCLC 277203534 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/277203534).
27. Monique Paulmier-Foucart, "Medieval Encyclopaedias", in André Vauchez (ed.),
Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, James Clarke & Co, 2002.
28. See "Encyclopedia" in Dictionary of the Middle Ages.
29. Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, Preface 14 (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/
text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0138%3Abook%3Dpreface%3Achapter%3D
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30. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, 1.10.1: ut efficiatur orbis ille doctrinae, quem Graeci
ἐγκύκλιον παιδείαν vocant.
31. έγκυκλοπαιδεία (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%
3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3De%29gkuklopaidei%2Fa), Henry George Liddell,
Robert Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon, at Perseus Project: "f. l. [= falsa lectio, Latin
for "false reading"] for ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία"
32. Loveland, J. (2012). "Why Encyclopedias Got Bigger … and Smaller" (https://www.re
searchgate.net/publication/241898454). Information & Culture. 47 (2): 233–254.
doi:10.1353/lac.2012.0012 (https://doi.org/10.1353%2Flac.2012.0012).
33. Onion, Rebecca. "How Two Artists Turn Old Encyclopedias Into Beautiful,
Melancholy Art" (https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/06/how-two-artists-turn-ol
d-encyclopedias-into-beautiful-melancholy-art.html). Slate. Retrieved
September 23, 2019.
34. Important Notice: MSN Encarta to be Discontinued (https://web.archive.org/web/20
091027213618/http://encarta.msn.com/guide_page_FAQ/FAQ.html). MSN Encarta.
Archived from the original (http://encarta.msn.com/guide_page_FAQ/FAQ.html) on
October 27, 2009.
35. Sidener, Jonathan (September 23, 2006). "Wikipedia co-founder looks to add
accountability, end anarchy" (https://web.archive.org/web/20180117190455/http://
legacy.sandiegouniontribune.com/uniontrib/20060923/news_lz1n23wiki.html). The
San Diego Union-Tribune . Archived from the original (http://legacy.sandiegouniontri
bune.com/uniontrib/20060923/news_lz1n23wiki.html) on January 17, 2018.
Retrieved January 16, 2017.
36. Giles, Jim (December 2005). "Internet encyclopedias go head to head". Nature.
438 (7070): 900–901. Bibcode:2005Natur.438..900G (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.ed
u/abs/2005Natur.438..900G). doi:10.1038/438900a (https://doi.org/10.1038%2F43
8900a). PMID 16355180 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16355180).(subscription
required) Note: The study was cited in several news articles; e.g.:

"Wikipedia survives research test" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/45309

30.stm). BBC News. December 15, 2005.
37. "Fatally Flawed: Refuting the recent study on encyclopedic accuracy by the journal
Nature" (http://corporate.britannica.com/britannica_nature_response.pdf) (PDF).
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. March 2006. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
38. Cohen, Noam (February 9, 2014). "Wikipedia vs. the Small Screen" (https://www.ny
times.com/2014/02/10/technology/wikipedia-vs-the-small-screen.html). New York
Times.
39. Reagle, Joseph; Rhue, Lauren (August 8, 2011). "Gender Bias in Wikipedia and
Britannica" (https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/777). International Journal of
Communication. 5: 21. ISSN 1932-8036 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/1932-8036).
Retrieved November 1, 2018.
40. Holloway, Todd; Bozicevic, Miran; Börner, Katy (2007). "Analyzing and visualizing
the semantic coverage of Wikipedia and its authors". Complexity. 12 (3): 30–40.
arXiv:cs/0512085 (https://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0512085). Bibcode:2007Cmplx..12c..30H
(https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007Cmplx..12c..30H). doi:10.1002/cplx.20164
(https://doi.org/10.1002%2Fcplx.20164).
41. Sideris A., "The Encyclopedic Concept in the Web Era" (https://www.academia.edu/
481168/The_Encyclopedic_Concept_in_the_Web_Era=), in Ioannides M., Arnold D.,
Niccolucci F. and K. Mania (eds.), The e-volution of Information Communication
Technology in Cultural Heritage. Where Hi-Tech Touches the Past: Risks and
Challenges for the 21st Century. VAST 2006, Epoch, Budapest 2006, pp. 192-197.
ISBN 963-8046-74-0.
42. "Wikipedia" (https://www.wikipedia.org/). www.wikipedia.org. Retrieved May 13,
2020.

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19-829951-6.
C. Codoner, S. Louis, M. Paulmier-Foucart, D. Hüe, M. Salvat, A. Llinares,
L'Encyclopédisme. Actes du Colloque de Caen, A. Becq (dir.), Paris, 1991.
Bergenholtz, H.; Nielsen, S.; Tarp, S., eds. (2009). Lexicography at a Crossroads:
Dictionaries and Encyclopedias Today, Lexicographical Tools Tomorrow. Peter Lang.
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clc/220101699).
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Encyclopédie, 1775–1800 (https://archive.org/details/Business_201507).
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External links
Encyclopaedia and Hypertext (https://web.archive.org/web/20060114061155/htt
p://www.educ.fc.ul.pt/hyper/eng/index.html)
Internet Accuracy Project (http://www.accuracyproject.org/cbe-errors-books.html) –
Biographical errors in encyclopedias and almanacs
Encyclopedia (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=did;cc=did;idno=did2
222.0000.004;rgn=main;view=text) – Diderot's article on the Encyclopedia from
the original Encyclopédie.
De expetendis et fugiendis rebus (https://web.archive.org/web/20080615051823/ht
tp://www.dm.unipi.it/~tucci/index.html) – First Renaissance encyclopedia
Errors and inconsistencies in several printed reference books and encyclopedias (h
ttp://kennedy.byu.edu/staff/peterson/multivol/multibooks.html) Archived (https://we
b.archive.org/web/20010718235527/http://kennedy.byu.edu/staff/peterson/Multivo
l/Multibooks.html) July 18, 2001, at the Wayback Machine
Digital encyclopedias put the world at your fingertips (https://web.archive.org/web/
20131109213126/http://reviews.cnet.com/1990-3118_7-6378998-1.html) – CNET
article
Encyclopedias online (https://web.archive.org/web/20080112134535/http://www.u
wstout.edu/lib/reference/encycl.htm) University of Wisconsin – Stout listing by
category
Chambers' Cyclopaedia (http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/HistSciTech/Cyclop
aedia), 1728, with the 1753 supplement
Encyclopædia Americana (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa&cc=
moa&key=title&page=browse&value=encyclop%C3%A6dia+americana&Submit=
 Quick+Browse), 1851, Francis Lieber ed. (Boston: Mussey & Co.) at the University
of Michigan Making of America site
Encyclopædia Britannica (http://www.1902encyclopedia.com/), articles and
illustrations from 9th ed., 1875–89, and 10th ed., 1902–03.
Texts on Wikisource:
"Cyclopædia"  (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Collier%27s_New_Encyclopedia_(1
921)/Cyclop%C3%A6dia). Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.
"Encyclopædia"  (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Encyclopedia_Americana_(1
920)/Encyclop%C3%A6dia). Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.
"Encyclopædia"  (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_Student%27s_Referen
ce_Work/Encyclop%C3%A6dia). The New Students Reference Work  (https://en.
wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_Students_Reference_Work). 1914.
"Encyclopaedia". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
"Encyclopædia"  (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Nuttall_Encyclop%C3%A6di
a/E#Encyclop%C3%A6dia). The Nuttall Encyclopædia. 1907.
"Encyclopædia". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
"Cyclopædia"  (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_American_Cyclop%C3%A6dia
_(1879)/Cyclop%C3%A6dia). The American Cyclopædia. 1879.

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