Our Annual Encyclopedia Update, A Look Back
Posted by: Rebecca Vnuk
Here’s a continuation of my look back at Reference Books Bulletin’s Encyclopedia Update. Previous posts are here and here.
By 1997, the year I started as editor of Reference Books Bulletin, many of the general encyclopedias were available in both print and CD-ROM versions. In addition, the full text (and it would have been text only) of all the encyclopedias was available online, either via subscription or through Prodigy, CompuServe (remember those?) or some other service. The Internet started to claim a space in our encyclopedia update in the form of reviews of online versions. At the same time, some CD-ROM encyclopedias began to morph into hybrids. Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia, for example, had an Internet button that took the user to the Web.
Early in 1998, the electronic rights to Collier’s Encyclopedia were sold to Microsoft, and that was that for Collier’s in print. Also that year, World Book introduced its Internet-based encyclopedia, and Grolier introduced New Book of Knowledge Online. CD-ROM versions were still available, making for a confusing array of choices. Did a library buy an encyclopedia in print, on CD-ROM. or online? And the choices didn’t stop there. If you chose a CD-ROM, was it the one-disc, two-disc, or even three- or four-disc version? DVD versions were also part of the mix.
To close this post, here are some comments longtime RBB reviewer (and Points of Reference blogger) Barbara Bibel made in 1999:
Writing the encyclopedia review made me think about how the electronic versions with their instant update capability will change both the concept of what an encyclopedia is and what users will expect from it. We have spent so much time educating our patrons about the difference between an encyclopedia and an almanac and now that difference is beginning to disappear. I hope that publishers will not lose sight of the main purpose of an encyclopedia as an educational rather than a current awareness tool.
It’s interesting to read these comments from 11 years ago in light of the challenges encyclopedia publishers have faced since then. With competition from the likes of Google and Wikipedia, they’ve had to hew even more closely to their educational mission rather than abandoning it. Next up: the Encyclopedia Update moves into the 21st century.
October 5th, 2010 at 6:44 am
It is relevant to note that since the college for whom I am a librarian launched its online program, that we have not acquire any new physical encyclopedias. We still have the 1982 edition of “The Encyclopedia” on our shelf, but then our customers rarely consult books of any kind. If publishers, like Merriam-Webster are carrying their products in paper, it is certainly not for the moneys that these are bringing to their bottom lines.
Frank