''Academic American Encyclopedia'' is a 21-volume general

English-language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

encyclopedia An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...

published in 1980. It was first produced by Arête Publishing, the American subsidiary of the Dutch publishing company

VNU VNU may refer to: * Verenigde Nederlandse Uitgeverijen, a Dutch publishing company * Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU), a public university system in Hanoi, Vietnam * Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam National Univers ...

'' Kister's Best Encyclopedias'', 1994 (later acquired by

Nielsen Media Research Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...

in 1999).

Arête Encyclopedia

The initial product, Arête Encyclopedia, was created on a schedule that was too tight resulting in many difficulties. The first Vice President of Editorial, Larry Lustig, came from Encyclopaedia Britannica and found the pressure too great. He was replaced by Michael Reed who came from ''

World Book Encyclopedia The ''World Book Encyclopedia'' is an American encyclopedia. ''World Book'' was first published in 1917. Since 1925, a new edition of the encyclopedia has been published annually. Although published online in digital form for a number of years, ...

''. Reed asked several times to have the production schedule lengthened to straighten out what had already been produced and assure reasonable time for completion. After six months, with no schedule change, Reed resigned rather than have his name associated with the work.

Grolier Grolier is one of the largest American publishers of general encyclopedias, including '' The Book of Knowledge'' (1910), '' The New Book of Knowledge'' (1966), ''The New Book of Popular Science'' (1972), '' Encyclopedia Americana'' (1945), '' Ac ...

acquired the encyclopedia in 1982. It has also been published under the names ''Grolier Academic Encyclopedia'', ''Grolier International Encyclopedia'', ''Lexicon Universal Encyclopedia'', ''Macmillan Family Encyclopedia'', ''

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. The company operates approximately 600 retail stores across the United States. Barnes & Noble operates mainly through its B ...

New American Encyclopedia'', and ''Global International Encyclopedia''. An abridged version was known as the ''Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge''. The full text of the encyclopedia was available to 200 homes in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus (, ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Ohio, most populous city of the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 United States census, 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the List of United States ...

in 1980, as part of an experiment sponsored by

OCLC OCLC, Inc. See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was founded in 1967 as the ...

. A year later, the text was available to subscribers of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' Information Bank, the Dow Jones News/Retrieval and

CompuServe CompuServe, Inc. (CompuServe Information Service, Inc., also known by its initialism CIS or later CSi) was an American Internet company that provided the first major commercial online service provider, online service. It opened in 1969 as a times ...

. Arête Publishing's interactive version, including illustrations, video and audio stored on videodisk was shown at the

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

Book Fair A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, mo ...

in 1982.

Electronic version

published the text-only 1985

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...

''The Electronic Encyclopedia from Grolier'', based on the ''Academic American Encyclopedia'', which comprised 30,000 entries and 9 million words. In 1990, when it was called ''The New Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia'' (1988–1991), still pictures were added. This evolved into the 1992 ''The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia'', later named the ''

Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia Grolier is one of the largest American publishers of general encyclopedias, including ''The Book of Knowledge'' (1910), ''The New Book of Knowledge'' (1966), ''The New Book of Popular Science'' (1972), ''Encyclopedia Americana'' (1945), ''Academ ...

''. The

version features a search function and offers the complete text of the ''Academic American Encyclopedia'', including

illustration An illustration is a decoration, interpretation, or visual explanation of a text, concept, or process, designed for integration in print and digitally published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, vi ...

photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, or more generically referred to as an ''image'' or ''picture'') is an image created by light falling on a photosensitivity, photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor. Th ...

animated Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby image, still images are manipulated to create Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on cel, transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and e ...

map A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on ...

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

and

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

s. In co-operation with

The Software Toolworks The Software Toolworks, Inc. (commonly abbreviated as Toolworks), was an American software and video game developer based in Novato, California. The company was founded by Walt Bilofsky in 1980 out of his Sherman Oaks garage, which he converted ...

company was created ''The Software Toolworks Illustrated Encyclopedia''.

References

External links

Grolier online
{{Italic title English-language encyclopedias American encyclopedias 1980 non-fiction books 20th-century encyclopedias 21st-century encyclopedias Online encyclopedias Pre–World Wide Web online services