Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica (Latin for 'British Encyclopædia') is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The encyclopaedia is maintained by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 contributors. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, which spans 32 volumes[1] and 32,640 pages, was the last printed edition. Since 2016, it has been published exclusively as an online encyclopaedia.
"Britannica" redirects here. For other uses, see Britannica (disambiguation).Author
As of 2008, 4,411 named contributors
Several; initial engravings by Andrew Bell
- United Kingdom (1768–1901)
- United States (1901–present)
General
- 1st through 6th editions (1768–1826): private publishers such as Andrew Bell, Archibald Constable, and Colin Macfarquhar
- 7th through 9th editions (1827–1901): A & C Black
- 10th through 14th editions (1901–1973): American businesses, including Sears Roebuck and the Benton Foundation
- 15th edition (2010): Benton Foundation and Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (as a separate entity, alongside Britannica.com Inc.)
1768–2010 (printed version)
32 volumes, hardbound (15th edition, 2010); print editions discontinued in 2012
32,640 (15th edition, 2010)
031
AE5 .E363 2007
Printed for 244 years, the Britannica was the longest-running in-print encyclopaedia in the English language. It was first published between 1768 and 1771 in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, as three volumes. The encyclopaedia grew in size: the second edition was 10 volumes,[2] and by its fourth edition (1801–1810) it had expanded to 20 volumes.[3] Its rising stature as a scholarly work helped recruit eminent contributors, and the 9th (1875–1889) and 11th editions (1911) are landmark encyclopaedias for scholarship and literary style. Starting with the 11th edition and following its acquisition by an American firm, the Britannica shortened and simplified articles to broaden its appeal to the North American market.
In 1933, the Britannica became the first encyclopaedia to adopt "continuous revision", in which the encyclopaedia is continually reprinted, with every article updated on a schedule. In the 21st century, the Britannica suffered first from competition with the digital multimedia encyclopaedia Microsoft Encarta,[4] and later with the online peer-produced encyclopaedia Wikipedia.[5][6][7]
In March 2012, it announced it would no longer publish printed editions and would focus instead on the online version.[6][8] Britannica has been assessed to be politically closer to the centre of the US political spectrum than Wikipedia.[9]
The 15th edition has a three-part structure: a 12-volume Micropædia of short articles (generally fewer than 750 words), a 17-volume Macropædia of long articles (two to 310 pages), and a single Propædia volume to give a hierarchical outline of knowledge. The Micropædia was meant for quick fact-checking and as a guide to the Macropædia; readers are advised to study the Propædia outline to understand a subject's context and to find more detailed articles. Over 70 years, the size of the Britannica has remained steady, with about 40 million words on half a million topics. Though published in the United States since 1901, the Britannica has for the most part maintained British English spelling.
Personnel and management[edit]
Contributors[edit]
The print version of the Britannica has 4,411 contributors, many eminent in their fields, such as Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman, astronomer Carl Sagan, and surgeon Michael DeBakey.[60] Roughly a quarter of the contributors are deceased, some as long ago as 1947 (Alfred North Whitehead), while another quarter are retired or emeritus. Most (approximately 98%) contribute to only a single article; however, 64 contributed to three articles, 23 contributed to four articles, 10 contributed to five articles, and 8 contributed to more than five articles. An exceptionally prolific contributor is Christine Sutton of the University of Oxford, who contributed 24 articles on particle physics.[61]
While Britannica's authors have included writers such as Albert Einstein,[62] Marie Curie,[63] and Leon Trotsky,[62] as well as notable independent encyclopaedists such as Isaac Asimov,[64] some have been criticized for lack of expertise. In 1911 the historian George L. Burr wrote:
