{{infobox book | name

Encyclopædia Britannica | image 100px | image_caption New American edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (1899) | author As of 2008, 4,411 named contributors | country Scotland (1768–1900)United States (1901–present) | language English | subject General | genre Reference encyclopedia | publisher Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. | release_date 1768–present | media_type As of 2008, 32 volumes (hardbound) | isbn ISBN 1-59339-292-3 | oclc 71783328 }}

The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (Latin for "British Encyclopaedia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., a privately held corporation. Articles are aimed at educated adults, and written by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert contributors. It is regarded as one of the most scholarly of encyclopaedias.

The ''Britannica'' is the oldest English-language encyclopaedia still in print. It was first published between 1768 and 1771 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and grew in popularity and size, its third edition (1797) and supplement (1801) reaching 20 volumes together. Its rising stature helped recruit eminent contributors, and the 9th edition (1875–1889) and the 11th edition (1911) are landmark encyclopaedias for scholarship and literary style. Beginning with the 11th edition, the ''Britannica'' shortened and simplified articles to broaden its North American market. In 1933, the ''Britannica'' became the first encyclopaedia to adopt "continuous revision", in which the encyclopaedia is continually reprinted and every article updated on a schedule.

The current 15th edition has a unique 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'' is 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. The size of the ''Britannica'' has remained roughly constant over 70 years, with about 40 million words on half a million topics. Although publication has been based in the United States since 1901, the ''Britannica'' has maintained British spelling.

The ''Britannica'' has had difficulty remaining profitable. Some articles in earlier editions have been criticised for inaccuracy, bias, or unqualified contributors. The accuracy in parts of the present edition has likewise been questioned, although criticisms have been challenged by ''Britannica's'' management.

History

Ownership has changed many times, past owners including the Scottish publisher A & C Black, Horace Everett Hooper, Sears Roebuck and William Benton. The present owner of Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. is Jacqui Safra, a Swiss billionaire and actor. Recent advances in information technology and the rise of electronic encyclopedias such as ''Encarta'' and Wikipedia have reduced the demand for print encyclopedias. To remain competitive, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. has stressed the reputation of the ''Britannica'', reduced its price and production costs, and developed electronic versions on CD-ROM, DVD, and the World Wide Web. Since the early 1930s, the company has promoted spin-off reference works.

Editions

The ''Britannica'' has been issued in 15 editions, with multi-volume supplements to the 3rd and 5th editions (see the Table below). The 10th edition was only a supplement to the 9th, just as the 12th and 13th editions were supplements to the 11th. The 15th underwent massive re-organisation in 1985, but the updated, current version is still known as the 15th.

Throughout history, the ''Britannica'' has had two aims: to be an excellent reference book and to provide educational material. In 1974, the 15th edition adopted a third goal: to systematise all human knowledge. The history of the ''Britannica'' can be divided into five eras, punctuated by changes in management or re-organisation of the dictionary.

1768–1826

In the first era (1st–6th editions, 1768–1826), the ''Britannica'' was managed and published by its founders, Colin Macfarquhar and Andrew Bell, by Archibald Constable, and by others. The ''Britannica'' was first published between 1768 and 1771 in Edinburgh as the ''Encyclopædia Britannica, or, A Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, compiled upon a New Plan''. In part, it was conceived in reaction to the French ''Encyclopédie'' of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert (published 1751–1772), which had been inspired by Chambers's ''Cyclopaedia'' (first edition 1728). The ''Britannica'' was primarily a Scottish enterprise; it is one of the most enduring legacies of the Scottish Enlightenment. In this era, the ''Britannica'' moved from being a three-volume set (1st edition) compiled by one young editor — William Smellie — to a 20-volume set written by numerous authorities. Several other encyclopaedias competed throughout this period, among them editions of Abraham Rees's ''Cyclopaedia'' and Coleridge's ''Encyclopaedia Metropolitana''. and David Brewster's ''Edinburgh Encyclopedia''.

1827–1901

During the second era (7th–9th editions, 1827–1901), the ''Britannica'' was managed by the Edinburgh publishing firm, A & C Black. Although some contributors were again recruited through friendships of the chief editors, notably Macvey Napier, others were attracted by the ''Britannica's'' reputation. The contributors often came from other countries and included the world's most respected authorities in their fields. A general index of all articles was included for the first time in the 7th edition, a practice maintained until 1974. The first English-born editor-in-chief was Thomas Spencer Baynes, who oversaw the production of the 9th edition; dubbed the "Scholar's Edition", the 9th is the most scholarly ''Britannica''. However, by the close of the 19th century, the 9th edition was outdated and the ''Britannica'' faced financial difficulties.

1901–1973

In the third era (10th–14th editions, 1901–73), the ''Britannica'' was managed by American businessmen who introduced direct marketing and door-to-door sales. The American owners gradually simplified articles, making them less scholarly for a mass market. The 10th edition was a rapidly produced supplement to the 9th, but the 11th edition is still praised for excellence; its owner, Horace Hooper, lavished enormous effort on its perfection. When Hooper fell into financial difficulties, the ''Britannica'' was managed by Sears Roebuck for 18 years (1920–23, 1928–43). In 1932, the vice-president of Sears, Elkan Harrison Powell, assumed presidency of the ''Britannica''; in 1936, he began the policy of continuous revision. This was a departure from earlier practice, in which the articles were not changed until a new edition was produced, at roughly 25-year intervals, some articles unchanged from earlier editions. Powell developed new educational products that built upon the ''Britannica's'' reputation. In 1943, ownership passed to William Benton, who managed the ''Britannica'' until his death in 1973. Benton set up the Benton Foundation, which managed the ''Britannica'' until 1996. In 1968, near the end of this era, the ''Britannica'' celebrated its bicentennial.

1974–1994

In the fourth era (15th edition, 1974–94), the ''Britannica'' introduced its 15th edition, which was re-organised into three parts: the ''Micropædia'', the ''Macropædia'', and the ''Propædia''. Under Mortimer J. Adler (member of the Board of Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica since its inception in 1949, and its chair from 1974; director of editorial planning for the 15th edition of ''Britannica'' from 1965), the ''Britannica'' sought not only to be a good reference work and educational tool but to systematise all human knowledge. The absence of a separate index and the grouping of articles into parallel encyclopaedias (the ''Micro-'' and ''Macropædia'') provoked a "firestorm of criticism" of the initial 15th edition. In response, the 15th edition was completely re-organised and indexed for a re-release in 1985. This second version of the 15th edition continues to be published and revised; the latest version is the 2010 print version. The official title of the 15th edition is the ''New Encyclopædia Britannica'', although it has also been promoted as ''Britannica 3''.

1994–present

In the fifth era (1994–present), digital versions have been developed and released on optical media and online. In 1996, the ''Britannica'' was bought by Jacqui Safra at well below its estimated value, owing to the company's financial difficulties. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc split in 1999. One part retained the company name and developed the print version, and the other, Britannica.com Inc., developed digital versions. Since 2001, the two companies shared a CEO, originally Ilan Yeshua, who has continued Powell's strategy of introducing new products with the ''Britannica'' name.

Dedications

The ''Britannica'' was dedicated to the reigning British monarch from 1788 to 1901 and then, upon its sale to an American partnership, to the British monarch and the President of the United States. Thus, the 11th edition is "dedicated by Permission to His Majesty George the Fifth, King of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Emperor of India, and to William Howard Taft, President of the United States of America." The order of the dedications has changed with the relative power of the United States and Britain, and with relative sales; the 1954 version of the 14th edition is "Dedicated by Permission to the Heads of the Two English-Speaking Peoples, Dwight David Eisenhower, President of the United States of America, and Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second." Consistent with this tradition, the 2007 version of the current 15th edition was "dedicated by permission to the current President of the United States of America, George W. Bush, and Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II," while the 2010 version of the current 15th edition is "dedicated by permission to Barack Obama President of the United States of America and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II."

Critical and popular assessments

Reputation

Since the 3rd edition, the ''Britannica'' has enjoyed a popular and critical reputation for general excellence. Various editions from the 3rd to the 9th were pirated for sale in the United States, beginning with ''Dobson's Encyclopædia''. On the release of the 14th edition, ''Time'' magazine dubbed the ''Britannica'' the "Patriarch of the Library". In a related advertisement, naturalist William Beebe was quoted as saying that the ''Britannica'' was "beyond comparison because there is no competitor." References to the ''Britannica'' can be found throughout English literature, most notably in one of Arthur Conan Doyle's favourite Sherlock Holmes stories, "The Red-Headed League". The tale was highlighted by the Lord Mayor of London, Gilbert Inglefield, at the bicentennial of the ''Britannica''.

The ''Britannica'' has a reputation for summarising knowledge. To further their education, many have devoted themselves to reading the entire ''Britannica'', taking anywhere from three to 22 years to do so. When Fat'h Ali became the Shah of Persia in 1797, he was given a set of the ''Britannica's'' 3rd edition, which he read completely; after this feat, he extended his royal title to include "Most Formidable Lord and Master of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''." Writer George Bernard Shaw claimed to have read the complete 9th edition—except for the science articles—and Richard Evelyn Byrd took the ''Britannica'' as reading material for his five-month stay at the South Pole in 1934, while Philip Beaver read it during a sailing expedition. More recently, A.J. Jacobs, an editor at ''Esquire'' magazine, read the entire 2002 version of the 15th edition, describing his experiences in the well-received 2004 book, ''The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World''. Only two people are known to have read two independent editions: the author C. S. Forester and Amos Urban Shirk, an American businessman, who read the 11th and 14th editions, devoting roughly three hours per night for four and a half years to read the 11th. Several editors-in-chief of the ''Britannica'' are likely to have read their editions completely, such as William Smellie (1st edition), William Robertson Smith (9th edition), and Walter Yust (14th edition).

Awards

The online ''Britannica'' won the 2005 Codie award for "Best Online Consumer Information Service"; the Codie awards are granted yearly by the Software and Information Industry Association to recognise the best products among categories of software. In 2006, the ''Britannica'' was again a finalist. Similarly, the CD/DVD-ROM version of the ''Britannica'' received the 2004 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Association of Educational Publishers, and Codie awards in 2000, 2001 and 2002. On 15 July 2009, ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' was awarded a spot as one of "Top Ten Superbrands in the UK" by a panel of more than 2,000 independent reviewers, as reported by the BBC.

Coverage of topics

Topics are chosen in part by reference to the ''Propædia'' "Outline of Knowledge". The bulk of the ''Britannica'' is devoted to geography (26% of the ''Macropædia''), biography (14%), biology and medicine (11%), literature (7%), physics and astronomy (6%), religion (5%), art (4%), Western philosophy (4%), and law (3%). A complementary study of the ''Micropædia'' found that geography accounted for 25% of articles, science 18%, social sciences 17%, biography 17%, and all other humanities 25%. Writing in 1992, one reviewer judged that the "range, depth, and catholicity of coverage [of the ''Britannica''] are unsurpassed by any other general encyclopedia."

The ''Britannica'' does not cover topics in equivalent detail; for example, the whole of Buddhism and most other religions is covered in a single ''Macropædia'' article, whereas 14 articles are devoted to Christianity, comprising nearly half of all religion articles. However, the ''Britannica'' has been lauded as the ''least'' biased of general encyclopedias marketed to Western readers and praised for its biographies of important women of all eras.

Criticisms

The ''Britannica'' has received criticism, especially as editions become outdated. It is expensive to produce a completely new edition of the ''Britannica,'' and its editors delay for as long as fiscally sensible (usually about 25 years). For example, despite continuous revision, the 14th edition had become outdated after 35 years (1929–1964). When American physicist Harvey Einbinder detailed its failings in his 1964 book, ''The Myth of the Britannica'', the encyclopaedia was provoked to produce the 15th edition, which required 10 years of work. It is still difficult to keep the ''Britannica'' current; one recent critic writes, "it is not difficult to find articles that are out-of-date or in need of revision", noting that the longer ''Macropædia'' articles are more likely to be outdated than the shorter ''Micropædia'' articles. Information in the ''Micropædia'' is sometimes inconsistent with the corresponding ''Macropædia'' article(s), mainly because of the failure to update one or the other. The bibliographies of the ''Macropædia'' articles have been criticised for being more out-of-date than the articles themselves.

While ''Britannica'''s authors have included authorities such as Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Leon Trotsky, some have been criticised for lack of expertise:

Bias

Authorities ranging from Virginia Woolf to professors criticised the 11th edition for having bourgeois and old-fashioned opinions on art, literature, and social sciences. A contemporary Cornell professor, Edward B. Titchener, wrote in 1912, "the new ''Britannica'' does not reproduce the psychological atmosphere of its day and generation... Despite the halo of authority, and despite the scrutiny of the staff, the great bulk of the secondary articles in general psychology ... are not adapted to the requirements of the intelligent reader."

Editorial choices

The ''Britannica'' is occasionally criticised for its editorial choices. Given its roughly constant size, the encyclopaedia has needed to reduce or eliminate some topics to accommodate others, resulting in controversial decisions. The initial 15th edition (1974–1985) was faulted for having reduced or eliminated coverage of children's literature, military decorations, and the French poet Joachim du Bellay; editorial mistakes were also alleged, such as inconsistent sorting of Japanese biographies. Its elimination of the index was condemned, as was the apparently arbitrary division of articles into the ''Micropædia'' and ''Macropædia''. Summing up, one critic called the initial 15th edition a "qualified failure...[that] cares more for juggling its format than for preserving information." More recently, reviewers from the American Library Association were surprised to find that most educational articles had been eliminated from the 1992 ''Macropædia'', along with the article on psychology.

''Britannica''-appointed contributors are occasionally mistaken or unscientific. A notorious instance from the ''Britannica's'' early years is the rejection of Newtonian gravity by George Gleig, the chief editor of the 3rd edition (1788–1797), who wrote that gravity was caused by the classical element of fire. However, the ''Britannica'' has also staunchly defended a scientific approach to emotional topics, as it did with William Robertson Smith's articles on religion in the 9th edition, particularly his article stating that the Bible was not historically accurate (1875).

Wendy Doniger, who is on the editorial board of Britannica, has been criticized for her negative portrayal of Hinduism. Britannica's presentation of Hinduism has also been criticized.

Racism and sexism

Critics have charged past editions with racism and sexism. For instance, the 11th edition (1910–1911) characterises the Ku Klux Klan as protecting the white race and restoring order to the American South after the American Civil War, citing the need to "control the negro", and "the frequent occurrence of the crime of rape by negro men upon white women." Similarly, the "Civilization" article argues for eugenics, stating that it is irrational to "propagate low orders of intelligence, to feed the ranks of paupers, defectives and criminals ... which to-day constitute so threatening an obstacle to racial progress." The 11th edition has no biography of Marie Curie, despite her winning of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911, although she is mentioned briefly under the biography of her husband Pierre Curie. The ''Britannica'' employed a large female editorial staff that wrote hundreds of articles for which they were not given credit.

Inaccuracy

In 1912 mathematician L. C. Karpinski criticised the ''Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition'' for inaccuracies in articles on the history of mathematics, none of which had been written by specialists.

In 1917, art critic Willard Huntington Wright published ''Misinforming a Nation'', which highlighted inaccuracies and English biases of the ''Eleventh Edition'', particularly in humanities. Many of Wright's criticisms were addressed in later editions. However, his book was denounced as a polemic by some contemporary reviewers; for example, the ''New York Times'' wrote that a "spiteful and shallow temper...pervades the book", while ''The New Republic'' opined, "it is unfortunate for Mr Wright's remorseless purpose that he has proceeded in an unscientific spirit and given so little objective justification of his criticism."

English writer and former priest Joseph McCabe claimed in ''Lies and Fallacies of the Encyclopædia Britannica'' (1947) that ''Britannica'' was censored under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church after the 11th edition.

American physicist Harvey Einbinder detailed failings of the 14th edition in his 1964 book, ''The Myth of the Britannica''.

An Irish newspaper, the ''Evening Herald'', said in February 2010 that Britannica offers a "farcically inaccurate version" of the country's history. An opposition senator said: "This screwy version of events is a gross insult to our people and our history. That it is being used to educate our children is even more ridiculous." The Department of Education, which paid €450,000 to give children in school online access to the Encyclopaedia, said it was "disappointed".

The ''Britannica'' has always conceded that errors are inevitable. Speaking of the 3rd edition (1788–1797), its chief editor George Gleig wrote that "perfection seems to be incompatible with the nature of works constructed on such a plan, and embracing such a variety of subjects." More recently (March 2006), the ''Britannica'' wrote that "we in no way mean to imply that ''Britannica'' is error-free; we have never made such a claim." The sentiment is expressed by its original editor, William Smellie:

Present status

Print version

Since 1985, the ''Britannica'' has had four parts: the ''Micropædia,'' the ''Macropædia,'' the ''Propædia,'' and a two-volume index. The ''Britannica'''s articles are found in the ''Micro-'' and ''Macropædia,'' which encompass 12 and 17 volumes, respectively, each volume having roughly one thousand pages. The 2007 ''Macropædia'' has 699 in-depth articles, ranging in length from 2 to 310 pages and having references and named contributors. In contrast, the 2007 ''Micropædia'' has roughly 65,000 articles, the vast majority (about 97%) of which contain fewer than 750 words, no references, and no named contributors. The ''Micropædia'' articles are intended for quick fact-checking and to help in finding more thorough information in the ''Macropædia''. The ''Macropædia'' articles are meant both as authoritative, well-written articles on their subjects and as storehouses of information not covered elsewhere. The longest article (310 pages) is on the United States, and resulted from the merger of the articles on the individual states.

Information can be found in the ''Britannica'' by following the cross-references in the ''Micropædia'' and ''Macropædia''; however, these are sparse, averaging one cross-reference per page. Hence, readers are recommended to consult instead the alphabetical index or the ''Propædia,'' which organises the ''Britannica'''s contents by topic.

The core of the ''Propædia'' is its "Outline of Knowledge", which aims to provide a logical framework for all human knowledge. Accordingly, the Outline is consulted by the ''Britannica'''s editors to decide which articles should be included in the ''Micro-'' and ''Macropædia''. The Outline is also intended to be a study guide, to put subjects in their proper perspective, and to suggest a series of ''Britannica'' articles for the student wishing to learn a topic in depth. However, libraries have found that it is scarcely used, and reviewers have recommended that it be dropped from the encyclopedia. The ''Propædia'' also has color transparencies of human anatomy and several appendices listing the staff members, advisors, and contributors to all three parts of the Britannica.

Taken together, the ''Micropædia'' and ''Macropædia'' comprise roughly 40 million words and 24,000 images. The two-volume index has 2,350 pages, listing the 228,274 topics covered in the ''Britannica,'' together with 474,675 subentries under those topics. The ''Britannica'' generally prefers British spelling over American; for example, it uses ''colour'' (not ''color''), ''centre'' (not ''center''), and ''encyclopaedia'' (not ''encyclopedia''). However, there are exceptions to this rule, such as ''defense'' rather than ''defence''. Common alternative spellings are provided with cross-references such as "Color: ''see'' Colour."

Since 1936, the articles of the ''Britannica'' have been revised on a regular schedule, with at least 10% of them considered for revision each year. According to one Britannica website, 46% of its articles were revised over the past three years; however, according to another Britannica web-site, only 35% of the articles were revised.

The alphabetisation of articles in the ''Micropædia'' and ''Macropædia'' follows strict rules. Diacritical marks and non-English letters are ignored, while numerical entries such as "1812, War of" are alphabetised as if the number had been written out ("Eighteen-twelve, War of"). Articles with identical names are ordered first by persons, then by places, then by things. Rulers with identical names are organised first alphabetically by country and then by chronology; thus, Charles III of France precedes Charles I of England, listed in ''Britannica'' as the ruler of Great Britain and Ireland. (That is, they are alphabetised as if their titles were "Charles, France, 3" and "Charles, Great Britain and Ireland, 1".) Similarly, places that share names are organised alphabetically by country, then by ever-smaller political divisions.

Related printed material

''Britannica Junior'' was first published in 1934 as 12 volumes. It was expanded to 15 volumes in 1947, and renamed ''Britannica Junior Encyclopaedia'' in 1963. It was taken off the market after the 1984 printing. A British ''Children's Britannica'' edited by John Armitage was issued in London in 1960. Its contents were determined largely by the 11-plus standardized tests given in Britain. Britannica introduced the ''Children's Britannica'' to the U.S. market in 1988, aimed at ages 7 to 14.

In 1961 a 16 volume ''Young Children's Encyclopaedia'' was issued for children just learning to read.

''My First Britannica'' is aimed at children ages six to twelve, and the ''Britannica Discovery Library'' is for children aged three to six (issued 1974 to 1991).

There have been and are several abridged ''Britannica'' encyclopedias. The single-volume ''Britannica Concise Encyclopædia'' has 28,000 short articles condensing the larger 32-volume ''Britannica''. ''Compton's by Britannica,'' first published in 2007, incorporating the former ''Compton's Encyclopedia,'' is aimed at 10–17 year olds and consists of 26 volumes and 11,000 pages.

Since 1938, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. has published annually a ''Book of the Year'' covering the past year's events, which is available online back to the 1994 edition (covering the events of 1993). The company also publishes several specialised reference works, such as ''Shakespeare: The Essential Guide to the Life and Works of the Bard'' (Wiley, 2006).

Optical disc, online, and mobile versions

The ''Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2006 DVD'' contains over 55 million words and just over 100,000 articles. This includes 73,645 regular ''Britannica'' articles, with the remainder drawn from the ''Britannica Student Encyclopædia,'' the ''Britannica Elementary Encyclopædia'' and the ''Britannica Book of the Year'' (1993–2004), plus a few "classic" articles from early editions of the encyclopaedia. The package includes a range of supplementary content including maps, videos, sound clips, animations and web links. It also offers study tools and dictionary and thesaurus entries from Merriam-Webster.

''Britannica Online'' is a web site with more than 120,000 articles and is updated regularly. It has daily features, updates and links to news reports from ''The New York Times'' and the BBC. Roughly 60% of Encyclopædia Britannica's revenue comes from online operations, of which around 15% comes from subscriptions to the consumer version of the websites. Subscriptions are available on a yearly, monthly or weekly basis. Special subscription plans are offered to schools, colleges and libraries; such institutional subscribers constitute an important part of Britannica's business. Articles may be accessed online for free, but only a few opening lines of text are displayed. Beginning in early 2007, the ''Britannica'' made articles freely available if they are linked to from an external site; such external links often improve an article's rankings in search engine results.

On 20 February 2007, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced that it was working with mobile phone search company AskMeNow to launch a mobile encyclopedia. Users will be able to send a question via text message, and AskMeNow will search ''Britannica'''s 28,000-article concise encyclopedia to return an answer to the query. Daily topical features sent directly to users' mobile phones are also planned.

On 3 June 2008, an initiative to facilitate collaboration between online expert and amateur scholarly contributors for Britannica's on-line content (in the spirit of a wiki), with editorial oversight from Britannica staff, was announced. Approved contributions would be credited, though contributing automatically grants Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. perpetual, irrevocable license to those contributions.

On 22 January 2009, Britannica's president, Jorge Cauz, announced that the company would be accepting edits and additions to the online Britannica website from the public. The published edition of the encyclopedia will not be affected by the changes. Individuals wishing to edit the Britannica website will have to register under their real name and address prior to editing or submitting their content. All edits submitted will be reviewed and checked and will have to be approved by the encyclopedia's professional staff. Contributions from non-academic users will sit in a separate section from the expert-generated ''Britannica'' content, as will content submitted by non-''Britannica'' scholars. Articles written by users, if vetted and approved, will also only be available in a special section of the website, separate from the professional articles. Official ''Britannica'' material would carry a "Britannica Checked" stamp, to distinguish it from the user-generated content.

On 14 September 2010, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced a partnership with mobile phone development company Concentric Sky to launch a series of iPhone products aimed at the K-12 market. On 20 July 2011, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced that Concentric Sky had ported the Britannica Kids product line to Intel's Intel Atom-based Netbooks.

Personnel and management

Contributors

The 2007 print version of the ''Britannica'' boasts 4,411 contributors, many eminent in their fields, such as Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman, astronomer Carl Sagan, and surgeon Michael DeBakey. 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 Dr. Christine Sutton of the University of Oxford, who contributed 24 articles on particle physics.

Staff

Dale Hoiberg, a sinologist, is the ''Britannica's'' Senior Vice President and editor-in-chief. Among his predecessors as editors-in-chief were Hugh Chisholm (1902–1924), James Louis Garvin (1926–1932), Franklin Henry Hooper (1932–1938), Walter Yust (1938–1960), Harry Ashmore (1960–1963), Warren E. Preece (1964–1968, 1969–1975), Sir William Haley (1968–1969), Philip W. Goetz (1979–1991), and Robert McHenry (1992–1997). Anita Wolff and Theodore Pappas serve as the current Deputy Editor and Executive Editor, respectively. Prior Executive Editors include John V. Dodge (1950–1964) and Philip W. Goetz.

The current editorial staff of the ''Britannica'' includes five Senior Editors and nine Associate Editors, supervised by Dale Hoiberg and four others. The editorial staff help to write the articles of the ''Micropædia'' and some sections of the ''Macropædia''.

Editorial advisors

The ''Britannica'' has an Editorial Board of Advisors, which includes 12 distinguished scholars:

author Nicholas Carr,

religion scholar Wendy Doniger,

political economist Benjamin M. Friedman,

Council on Foreign Relations President Emeritus Leslie H. Gelb,

computer scientist David Gelernter,

Physics Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann,

Carnegie Corporation of New York President Vartan Gregorian,

philosopher Thomas Nagel,

cognitive scientist Donald Norman,

musicologist Don Michael Randel,

Stewart Sutherland, Baron Sutherland of Houndwood, President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and

cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch.

The ''Propædia'' and its ''Outline of Knowledge'' were produced by dozens of editorial advisors under the direction of Mortimer J. Adler. Roughly half of these advisors have since died, including some of the Outline's chief architects: Rene Dubos (d. 1982), Loren Eiseley (d. 1977), Harold D. Lasswell (d. 1978), Mark Van Doren (d. 1972), Peter Ritchie Calder (d. 1982) and Mortimer J. Adler (d. 2001). The ''Propædia'' also lists just under 4,000 advisors who were consulted for the unsigned ''Micropædia'' articles.

Corporate structure

In January 1996, the ''Britannica'' was purchased from the Benton Foundation by billionaire Swiss financier Jacqui Safra, who serves as its current Chair of the Board. In 1997, Don Yannias, a long-time associate and investment advisor of Safra, became CEO of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. A new company, Britannica.com Inc. was spun off in 1999 to develop the digital versions of the ''Britannica''; Yannias assumed the role of CEO in the new company, while that of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. remained vacant for two years. Yannias' tenure at Britannica.com Inc. was marked by missteps, large lay-offs and financial losses. In 2001, Yannias was replaced by Ilan Yeshua, who reunited the leadership of the two companies. Yannias later returned to investment management, but remains on the ''Britannica's'' Board of Directors.

In 2003, former management consultant Jorge Aguilar-Cauz was appointed President of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Cauz is the senior executive and reports directly to the ''Britannica's'' Board of Directors. Cauz has been pursuing alliances with other companies and extending the ''Britannica'' brand to new educational and reference products, continuing the strategy pioneered by former CEO Elkan Harrison Powell in the mid-1930s.

Under Safra's ownership, the company has experienced financial difficulties, and has responded by reducing the price of its products and implementing drastic cost cuts. According to a 2003 report in the ''New York Post'', the ''Britannica'' management has eliminated employee 401(k) accounts and encouraged the use of free images. These changes have had negative impacts, as freelance contributors have waited up to six months for checks and the ''Britannica'' staff have gone years without pay rises.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. now owns registered trademarks on the words ''Britannica'', ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', ''Macropædia'', ''Micropædia'', and ''Propædia'', as well as on its thistle logo. It has exercised its trademark rights as recently as 2005.

Competition

As the ''Britannica'' is a general encyclopaedia, it does not seek to compete with specialised encyclopaedias such as the ''Encyclopaedia of Mathematics'' or the ''Dictionary of the Middle Ages'', which can devote much more space to their chosen topics. In its first years, the ''Britannica'''s main competitor was the general encyclopaedia of Ephraim Chambers and, soon thereafter, ''Rees's Cyclopaedia'' and Coleridge's ''Encyclopaedia Metropolitana''. In the 20th century, successful competitors included ''Collier's Encyclopedia,'' the ''Encyclopedia Americana,'' and the ''World Book Encyclopedia''. Nevertheless, from the 9th edition onwards, the ''Britannica'' was widely considered to have the greatest authority of any general English language encyclopaedia, especially because of its broad coverage and eminent authors. The print version of the ''Britannica'' is significantly more expensive than its competitors.

Since the early 1990s, the ''Britannica'' has faced new challenges from digital information sources. The Internet, facilitated by the development of search engines, has grown into a common source of information for many people, and provides easy access to reliable original sources and expert opinions, thanks in part to initiatives such as Google Books, MIT's release of its educational materials and the open PubMed Central library of the National Library of Medicine. In general, the Internet tends to provide more current coverage than print media, due to the ease with which material on the Internet can be updated. In rapidly changing fields such as science, technology, politics, culture and modern history, the ''Britannica'' has struggled to stay up-to-date, a problem first analysed systematically by its former editor Walter Yust. Although the ''Britannica'' is now available both in multimedia form and over the Internet, its preeminence is being challenged by other online encyclopaedias, such as Wikipedia.

Print encyclopaedias

The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' has been compared with other print encyclopaedias, both qualitatively and quantitatively. A well-known comparison is that of Kenneth Kister, who gave a qualitative and quantitative comparison of the ''Britannica'' with two comparable encyclopaedias, ''Collier's Encyclopedia'' and the ''Encyclopedia Americana''. For the quantitative analysis, ten articles were selected at random – circumcision, Charles Drew, Galileo, Philip Glass, heart disease, IQ, panda bear, sexual harassment, Shroud of Turin and Uzbekistan – and letter grades of A–D or F were awarded in four categories: coverage, accuracy, clarity, and recency. In all four categories and for all three encyclopaedias, the four average grades fell between B− and B+, chiefly because none of the encyclopaedias had an article on sexual harassment in 1994. In the accuracy category, the ''Britannica'' received one "D" and seven "A"s, ''Encyclopedia Americana'' received eight "A"s, and ''Collier's'' received one "D" and seven "A"s; thus, ''Britannica'' received an average score of 92% for accuracy to ''Americana''′s 95% and ''Collier's'' 92%. The 1994 ''Britannica'' was faulted for publishing an inflammatory story about Charles Drew that had long been discredited. In the timeliness category, ''Britannica'' averaged an 86% to ''Americana''′s 90% and ''Collier's'' 85%. After a more thorough qualitative comparison of all three encyclopedias, Kister recommended ''Collier's Encyclopedia'' as the superior encyclopaedia, primarily on the strength of its excellent writing, balanced presentation and easy navigation.

''Collier's'' has not been in print for 12 years, since 1998. The ''Encyclopedia Americana'' was last published in 2006. ''Britannica'' was last published in 2010.

Digital encyclopedias on optical media

The most notable competitor of the ''Britannica'' among CD/DVD-ROM digital encyclopedias was ''Encarta'', now discontinued, a modern, multimedia encyclopedia that incorporated three print encyclopedias: ''Funk & Wagnalls'', ''Collier's'' and the ''New Merit Scholar''. ''Encarta'' was the top-selling multimedia encyclopaedia, based on total U.S. retail sales from January 2000 to February 2006. Both occupied the same price range, with the ''2007 Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate'' CD or DVD costing US$50 and the Microsoft Encarta Premium 2007 DVD costing US$45. The ''Britannica'' contains 100,000 articles and ''Merriam-Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus'' (U.S. only), and offers Primary and Secondary School editions. ''Encarta'' contained 66,000 articles, a user-friendly Visual Browser, interactive maps, math, language and homework tools, a U.S. and UK dictionary, and a youth edition. Like ''Encarta'', the ''Britannica'' has been criticised for being biased towards United States audiences; the United Kingdom-related articles are updated less often, maps of the United States are more detailed than those of other countries, and it lacks a UK dictionary. Like the ''Britannica'', ''Encarta'' was available online by subscription, although some content could be accessed for free.

Internet encyclopedias

Online alternatives to the ''Britannica'' include Wikipedia, a freely available Web-based free-content encyclopedia. A key difference between the two encyclopaedias lies in article authorship. The 699 ''Macropædia'' articles are generally written by identified contributors, and the roughly 65,000 ''Micropædia'' articles are the work of the editorial staff and identified outside consultants. Thus, a ''Britannica'' article either has known authorship or a set of possible authors (the editorial staff). With the exception of the editorial staff, most of the ''Britannica'''s contributors are experts in their field—some are Nobel laureates. By contrast, the articles of Wikipedia are written by a community of editors with varying levels of expertise: most editors do not claim any particular expertise; of those who do, many are anonymous and have no verifiable credentials. Another difference is the pace of article change: the ''Britannica'' is published in print every few years, while Wikipedia's articles are likely to update frequently. Robert McHenry stated that Wikipedia cannot hope to rival the ''Britannica'' in accuracy.

On 14 December 2005, in a study, the journal ''Nature'' chose articles from both sites in a wide range of topics and sent them to what it called "relevant" field experts for peer review. The experts then compared the competing articles--one from each site on a given topic--side by side, but were not told which article came from which site. ''Nature'' got back 42 usable reviews from its field of experts.

In the end, the journal found just eight serious errors, such as general misunderstandings of vital concepts, in the articles. Of those, four came from each site. They did, however, discover a series of factual errors, omissions or misleading statements. All told, Wikipedia had 162 such problems, while Britannica had 123.

That averages out to 2.92 mistakes per article for ''Britannica'' and 3.86 for Wikipedia. In its detailed 20-page rebuttal, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. characterized ''Nature'''s study as flawed and misleading and called for a "prompt" retraction. It noted that two of the articles in the study were taken from a ''Britannica'' year book, and not the encyclopedia; another two were from ''Compton's Encyclopedia'' (called the ''Britannica Student Encyclopedia'' on the company's web site). The rebuttal went on to mention that some of the articles presented to reviewers were combinations of several articles, and that other articles were merely excerpts but were penalised for factual omissions. The company also noted that several facts classified as errors by ''Nature'' were minor spelling variations, and that several of its alleged errors were matters of interpretation. ''Nature'' defended its story and declined to retract, stating that, as it was comparing Wikipedia with the web version of Britannica, it used whatever relevant material was available on Britannica's website.

Interviewed in February 2009, the Managing Director of Britannica UK said:

Edition summary

abbr="Edition"	Edition/supplement	Publication years	! Size	Chief editor(s)	! Notes
1st	1768–1771	3 volumes, 2,670 pages, 160 plates		Largely the work of one editor, Smellie; 30 articles longer than three pages
2nd	1777–1784	10 volumes, 8,595 pages, 340 plates	James Tytler	150 long articles; ongoing pagination errors; all maps under "Geography" article
3rd	1788–1797	18 volumes, 14,579 pages, 542 plates	Colin Macfarquhar and George Gleig
supplement to 3rd	1801	2 volumes, 1,624 pages, 50 plates	George Gleig	Copyright owned by Thomas Bonar
4th	1801–1809	20 volumes, 16,033 pages, 581 plates		Authors first allowed to retain copyright
5th	1817	20 volumes, 16,017 pages, 582 plates	James Millar	Financial losses by Millar and Andrew Bell's heirs; EB rights sold to Archibald Constable
supplement to 5th	1816–1824		Macvey Napier	Famous contributors recruited, such as Sir Humphry Davy, Sir Walter Scott, Malthus
6th	1820–1823	20 volumes	Charles Maclaren
7th	1830–1842	21 volumes, 17,101 pages, 506 plates, 187-page index		Widening network of famous contributors, such as Sir David Brewster, Thomas de Quincey, Antonio Panizzi
8th	1853–1860		Thomas Stewart Traill
9th	1875–1889	24 volumes, plus one index volume	Thomas Spencer Baynes (1875–80); then W. Robertson Smith
10th,supplement to 9th	1902–1903		Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace and Hugh Chisholm in London; Arthur T. Hadley & Franklin Henry Hooper in New York City	American partnership bought EB rights on 9 May 1901; high-pressure sales methods
! style="text-align:right;"	1910–1911	28 volumes, plus one index volume	Hugh Chisholm in London, Franklin Henry Hooper in New York City
style="text-align:right;"	12th,supplement to 11th	1921–1922		Hugh Chisholm in London, Franklin Henry Hooper in New York City	Summarised state of the world before, during, and after World War I
13th,supplement to 11th	1926		James Louis Garvin in London, Franklin Henry Hooper in New York City	Replaced 12th edition volumes; improved perspective of the events of 1910–1926
14th	1929–1933		James Louis Garvin in London, Franklin Henry Hooper in New York City	Publication just before Great Depression was financially catastrophic
revised 14th	1933–1973		Franklin Henry Hooper until 1938; then Walter Yust, Harry Ashmore, Warren E. Preece, William Haley	Began continuous revision in 1936: every article revised at least twice every decade
15th	1974–1984		Warren E. Preece, then Philip W. Goetz	Introduced three-part structure; division of articles into ''Micropædia'' and ''Macropædia''; ''Propædia'' Outline of Knowledge; separate index eliminated
		#editionnote9>9	Philip W. Goetz, then Robert McHenry, currently Dale Hoiberg	Restored two-volume index; merged ''Micropædia'' and ''Macropædia'' articles; slightly longer overall; new versions issued every few years

1''Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. With preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences.''

2 The 8th to 14th editions included a separate index volume.

3 The 9th edition featured articles by notables of the day, such as 4 The 10th edition included a maps volume and a cumulative index volume for the 9th and 10th edition volumes: ''the new volumes, constituting, in combination with the existing volumes of the 9th ed., the 10th ed. ... and also supplying a new, distinctive, and independent library of reference dealing with recent events and developments''

5 ''Vols. 30–32 ... the New volumes constituting, in combination with the twenty-nine volumes of the eleventh edition, the twelfth edition''

6 This supplement replaced the previous supplement: ''The three new supplementary volumes constituting, with the volumes of the latest standard edition, the thirteenth edition.''

7 This edition was the first to be kept up to date by continual (usually annual) revision.

8 The 15th edition (introduced as "Britannica 3") was published in three parts: a 10-volume ''Micropædia'' (which contained short articles and served as an index), a 19-volume ''Macropædia'', plus the ''Propædia'' (see text). It was reorganised in 1985 to have 12 and 17 volumes in the ''Micro-'' and ''Macropædia''.

9 In 1985, the system was modified by adding a separate two-volume index; the ''Macropædia'' articles were further consolidated into fewer, larger ones (for example, the previously separate articles about the 50 U.S. states were all included into the "United States of America" article), with some medium-length articles moved to the ''Micropædia''.

The first CD-ROM edition was issued in 1994. At that time also an online version was offered for paid subscription. In 1999 this was offered for free, and no revised print versions appeared. The experiment was ended in 2001 and a new printed set was issued in 2001.

See also

[[List of encyclopedias by branch of knowledge">James Clerk Maxwell

⁴ The 10th edition included a maps volume and a cumulative index volume for the 9th and 10th edition volumes: ''the new volumes, constituting, in combination with the existing volumes of the 9th ed., the 10th ed. ... and also supplying a new, distinctive, and independent library of reference dealing with recent events and developments''

⁵ ''Vols. 30–32 ... the New volumes constituting, in combination with the twenty-nine volumes of the eleventh edition, the twelfth edition''

⁶ This supplement replaced the previous supplement: ''The three new supplementary volumes constituting, with the volumes of the latest standard edition, the thirteenth edition.''

⁷ This edition was the first to be kept up to date by continual (usually annual) revision.

⁸ The 15th edition (introduced as "Britannica 3") was published in three parts: a 10-volume ''Micropædia'' (which contained short articles and served as an index), a 19-volume ''Macropædia'', plus the ''Propædia'' (see text). It was reorganised in 1985 to have 12 and 17 volumes in the ''Micro-'' and ''Macropædia''.

⁹ In 1985, the system was modified by adding a separate two-volume index; the ''Macropædia'' articles were further consolidated into fewer, larger ones (for example, the previously separate articles about the 50 U.S. states were all included into the "United States of America" article), with some medium-length articles moved to the ''Micropædia''.

The first CD-ROM edition was issued in 1994. At that time also an online version was offered for paid subscription. In 1999 this was offered for free, and no revised print versions appeared. The experiment was ended in 2001 and a new printed set was issued in 2001.

See also

[[List of encyclopedias by branch of knowledge

List of encyclopedias by language (English)

List of historical encyclopedias

List of online encyclopedias

References

Further reading

}}

Lee, Timothy. ''Techdirt Interviews Britannica President Jorge Cauz'', Techdirt.com, 2 June 2008

Greenstein, Shane, and Michelle Devereux (2006). "The Crisis at Encyclopædia Britannica" case history, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

External links

;Official site:

Official website

;Earlier editions (in the public domain in the U.S.A.):

Preface to the 1st edition of the ''Britannica'', by William Smellie.

The article "History" in the 3rd edition of the ''Britannica''.

Articles and illustrations from the 9th and 10th editions of the ''Britannica''.

Scanned version of the famous 11th edition of the ''Britannica''.

Text version of the famous 11th edition of the ''Britannica''. (Partial)

;Historical articles:

"Encyclopaedia Britannica". In ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' Online.

1768–2005:l'aventure Britannica. History of the ''Britannica'', from the French Britannica site.

, history of the ''Britannica'' on ''The Scotsman's'' Heritage and Culture pages.

;Recent events:

Technical aspects of the ''Britannica's'' online and CD/DVD-ROM editions.

Britannica disagrees with Wikipedia comparison study.

To wire or not to wire? Encyclopædia Britannica vs. Microsoft Encarta

:A comparison of the two encyclopedias by Panagiota Alevizou, published in the ''Educational Technology & Society'' journal.

Encyclopaedia Britannica To Follow Modified Wikipedia Model | Epicenter from Wired.com

;Business history:

"Dusting off the Britannica". Article from ''BusinessWeek'' magazine (1997).

"Death of a salesforce". Article from Salon (1996).

"The Work of the Encyclopedia in the Age of Electronic Reproduction". Article by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang in ''First Monday''.

The Crisis at Encyclopædia Britannica Kellogg School of Management

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