Page 183 - Encyclopedia Of World History

dictionaries and encyclopedias 533

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll
get me a book I ain’t read. • Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

Harris’s methods, Ephraim Chambers made the ency- revised and changed incrementally until the landmark
clopedia accessible to a mass audience by stressing read- ninth edition (1888), which along with the classic
able articles in his Cyclopaedia (1728). He also eleventh edition (1911) is thought the standard in bal-
broadened coverage of the arts and employed a through anced, accessible scholarship.These two editions created
system of cross-references. the Britannica’s reputation. But, the success of the Britan-
nica was due to as much to marketing and an increasingly
L’Encyclopedie and affluent middle class, as to the quality of the set, especially
the Britannica in the United States. By the fourteenth edition released in
Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond, later known as d’Alem- 1929, the Britannica was being published in America
bert, changed what started as a translation of the Cham- and reflected American interests more than British. The
bers Cyclopaedia into what would become the most fifteenth edition, first published in 1974, is currently avail-
famous and storied encyclopedias in history. Under their able in print, as well as online and CD-ROM.
guidance, particularly Diderot’s, L’Encyclopedie (1765)
became a revolutionary philosophical undertaking, fea- Present and Future Trends
turing the writing of luminaries like Voltaire,Turgot, and As knowledge grows exponentially, dictionaries and ency-
Rousseau. It rejected much of the past and promulgated clopedias continue to evolve and change. They are no
the scientific theories and advanced ideas of the Enlight- longer solely the domain of scholars. Mass-market dic-
enment. Reason, not the Church, was the source of tionaries and encyclopedias, appealing to a far wider
authority, and traditional learning was criticized for its audience, are available in supermarkets as well as book-
prejudice and superstition.The Encyclopedie was a pow- stores.This is particularly true for dictionaries and height-
erful tool of protest and was subject to censorship and ens the tension between their proscriptive and descriptive
suppression. But because it also reflected the interests of roles. Dictionaries are asked to be authoritative, yet neu-
the emerging middle class devoted to commerce and cap- tral and objective, and at the same time describe living
italism, it became widely popular and influential. language as spoken by a broad population. This dicho-
Two other names dominate encyclopedia publishing tomy can be expected to grow as dictionaries appeal to
following the L’Encyclopedie, David Frederich Brock- an even wider audience via computers and the World
haus and Pierre Larousse.Their works, the Koversations- Wide Web.
Lexikon (1811) and the Grand Dictionnaire Universal Computer technology also provides timeliness un-
(1876), featured short, accessible articles, alphabetically dreamed of by previous dictionary makers. Online dic-
arranged, which highlighted their use as reference works tionaries can be updated immediately and continuously.
to be consulted, rather than read. Publishing houses In addition computers revolutionize the way people
bearing their names continue to publish highly respected search and retrieve needed information. Editors of the
encyclopedias today. Another great Continental encyclo- OED Online note that “complex investigations into word
pedia that has to be mentioned is the Enciclopedia ital- origins or quotations that would have been impossible to
iana di scienze, lettere ed arti (1929–1939). One of the conduct using the print edition now take only a few sec-
finest national encyclopedias ever published, it is onds.” And, computers, combined with the World Wide
nonetheless international in scope (Collison 1964). Web, enable collaborative scholarly projects like the Dig-
The Encyclopedia Britannica ranks in importance with ital Dictionaries of South Asia effort led by the University
Diderot’s L’Encyclopedie. The first edition consisted of of Chicago and popular collections of online dictionaries
three volumes of both fact and fiction, but under the edi- like yourdictionary.com.
torship of John Tytler that changed. His second edition Today, the traditional role of an encyclopedia in clas-
(1784) was a ten-volume set with 340 plates and an sifying the world’s knowledge is marginal. Indexes,
emphasis on historical articles and biographies. It was cross-references, and hyperlinks supplant schema and