''Encyclopedia.com'' is an

online encyclopedia An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, is a digital encyclopedia accessible through the Internet. Some examples include pre-World Wide Web services that offered the '' Academic American Encyclopedia'' beginning in 1980, Enc ...

. It aggregates information, images, and videos from other published dictionaries, encyclopedias, and reference works.

History

The website was launched by

Infonautics Infonautics, Inc. was an information services company, founded in 1992 by Marvin Weinberger, Lawrence Husick, and Josh Kopelman, and had its headquarters in Wayne, Pennsylvania, United States. It was a spin-out from Telebase, Inc., which retained ...

in March 1998. Infonautics was acquired by

Tucows Tucows Inc. is an American-Canadian publicly traded Internet services and telecommunications company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and incorporated in Pennsylvania, United States. The company is composed of three independent business ...

in August 2001. In August 2002,

Patrick Spain Patrick J. Spain (born 1952) is a serial entrepreneur. He is currently the co-founder and CEO of First Stop Health, LLC., a Chicago-based provider of telemedicine services. He is also the Executive Chairman and co-founder of the news curation sit ...

bought ''Encyclopedia.com'' and its sister website

eLibrary HighBeam Research was a paid search engine and full text online archive owned by Gale, a subsidiary of Cengage, for thousands of newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines, and encyclopedias in English. It was headquarte ...

from

and incorporated them into a new company called Alacritude, LLC (a combination of Alacrity and Attitude). The business became known as

HighBeam Research HighBeam Research was a paid search engine and full text online archive owned by Gale, a subsidiary of Cengage, for thousands of newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines, and encyclopedias in English. It was headqua ...

and was eventually sold to

Gale A gale is a strong wind; the word is typically used as a descriptor in nautical contexts. The U.S. National Weather Service defines a gale as sustained surface wind moving at a speed between .

. For a time the website was operated by

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

-based company

Highbeam Research HighBeam Research was a paid search engine and full text online archive owned by Gale, a subsidiary of Cengage, for thousands of newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines, and encyclopedias in English. It was headqua ...

, a subsidiary of reference publisher

Gale A gale is a strong wind; the word is typically used as a descriptor in nautical contexts. The U.S. National Weather Service defines a gale as sustained surface wind moving at a speed between .

, which itself is a subsidiary of

Cengage Cengage Group is an American educational content, technology, and services company for higher education, K–12, professional, and library markets. It operates in more than 20 countries around the world.(June 27, 2014Global Publishing Leaders 2 ...

Content

''Encyclopedia.com'' allows users to access information on a subject that is derived from multiple encyclopedias and dictionary sources, and it has nearly 200,000 entries and 50,000 topic summaries. It provides a collection of online encyclopedias and entries from various sources, including

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, ''

Columbia Encyclopedia The ''Columbia Encyclopedia'' is a one-volume encyclopedia produced by Columbia University Press and, in the last edition, sold by the Gale Group. First published in 1935, and continuing its relationship with Columbia University Columbi ...

'', and

Gale A gale is a strong wind; the word is typically used as a descriptor in nautical contexts. The U.S. National Weather Service defines a gale as sustained surface wind moving at a speed between .

, its parent company.

References

External links

* {{Cengage American online encyclopedias 21st-century encyclopedias Internet properties established in 1998