Encyclopedia Update Preview (and a Look Back)
Posted by: Rebecca Vnuk
Reference Books Bulletin’s team of encyclopedia reviewers, Barbara Bibel and Shauna Yusko and I, just wrapped up the 2010 Encyclopedia Update, which will appear in September 15 issue of Booklist. The Encyclopedia Update is almost 30 years old and the updates that have appeared over the years shine a light on how encyclopedia and reference publishing have changed.
The Annual Encyclopedia Roundup, as it was first called, started in 1984, but included just five titles. The Roundup really took off in 1985, when 10 encyclopedias were represented: Academic American Encyclopedia, Collier’s Encyclopedia, Compton’s Encyclopedia (which my grandmother used to sell foor-to-door), Encyclopedia Americana, Funk & Wagnall’s New Encyclopedia, Merit Student Encyclopedia, The New Book of Knowledge, The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, New Standard Encyclopedia, and World Book. How many of these names are familiar to you? Only Compton’s, Americana, The New Book of Knowledge, Britannica, and World Book still survive in any recognizable form, and only World Book still comes out in a new print edition every year.
The limitations of print publishing made it impossible for publishers to change every article every year, and RBB regularly took them to task for uneveness in revision. The first glimpse of what the future might hold came in our 1988 update, when we noted that “the editorial process for many encyclopedias today is computerized, making it even easier to update entries.” Who knew back then what the information contained in that simple sentence would really mean?
In the run up to the publication of our 2010 Update, I’ll be looking over more of our past updates and posting my thoughts.
