Encyclopædia Britannica (company)

The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various times through the centuries. 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 and 32,640 pages, was the last printed edition. Since 2016, it has been published exclusively as an online encyclopaedia.

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, and by its fourth edition (1801–1810) it had expanded to 20 volumes. 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 March 2012, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced it would no longer publish printed editions and would focus instead on the online version.

The 15th edition has a three-part structure: a 12-volume of short articles (generally fewer than 750 words), a 17-volume of long articles (two to 310 pages), and a single volume to give a hierarchical outline of knowledge. The was meant for quick fact-checking and as a guide to the ; readers are advised to study the 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.

Present status

Print version

Since 1985, the ''Britannica'' had four parts: the , the , the , and a two-volume index. The ''Britannica'' articles are found in the and , which encompass 12 and 17 volumes, respectively, each volume having roughly one thousand pages. The 2007 has 699 in-depth articles, ranging in length from 2 to 310 pages and having references and named contributors. In contrast, the 2007 has roughly 65,000 articles, the vast majority (about 97%) of which contain fewer than 750 words, no references, and no named contributors. The articles are intended for quick fact-checking and to help in finding more thorough information in the . The 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. A 2013 "Global Edition" of ''Britannica'' contained approximately forty thousand articles.

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

The core of the is its "Outline of Knowledge", which aims to provide a logical framework for all human knowledge. Accordingly, the Outline is consulted by the ''Britannica'' editors to decide which articles should be included in the and . 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 encyclopaedia. The 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 and 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 website, only 35% of the articles were revised.

The alphabetization of articles in the and follows strict rules. Diacritical marks and non-English letters are ignored, while numerical entries such as " 1812, War of" are alphabetized 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 organized 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 alphabetized as if their titles were "Charles, France, 3" and "Charles, Great Britain and Ireland, 1".) Similarly, places that share names are organized alphabetically by country, then by ever-smaller political divisions.

In March 2012, the company announced that the 2010 edition would be the last printed version. This was announced as a move by the company to adapt to the times and focus on its future using digital distribution. The peak year for the printed encyclopaedia was 1990 when 120,000 sets were sold, but it dropped to 40,000 in 1996. 12,000 sets of the 2010 edition were printed, of which 8,000 had been sold . By late April 2012, the remaining copies of the 2010 edition had sold out at Britannica's online store. , a replica of Britannica's 1768 first edition is sold on the online store.

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 Encyclopædia'' 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 eleven-plus standardized tests given in Britain.''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 1988 Britannica introduced the ''Children's Britannica'' to the US market in 1988, aimed at ages seven 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 12, and the ''Britannica Discovery Library'' is for children aged three to six (issued 1974 to 1991).

There have been, and are, several abridged ''Britannica'' encyclopaedias. The single-volume ''Britannica Concise Encyclopædia'' has 28,000 short articles condensing the larger 32-volume ''Britannica''; there are authorized translations in languages such as Chinese and Vietnamese. ''Compton's by Britannica'', first published in 2007, incorporating the former ''Compton's Encyclopedia'', is aimed at 10- to 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. A given edition of the ''Book of the Year'' is named in terms of the year of its publication, though the edition actually covers the events of the previous year. The company also publishes several specialized 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 2012 DVD'' contains over 100,000 articles. This includes regular ''Britannica'' articles, as well as others drawn from the ''Britannica Student Encyclopædia'', and the ''Britannica Elementary Encyclopædia.'' 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 website 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
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