But like many people, I find the price daunting, and so I can’t complain too much about Britannica Online. So yes, I’d prefer to have Britannica right here on my shelf, where I could consult, browse and explore it any time the spirit came over me, without the trouble of logging onto the Internet. And finally, with none of these products can you easily illuminate a dinner-table debate by bringing down the volume and reading the gospel according to Britannica right from the book. Sure the world is changing fast, but that doesn’t mean that everything we have thought about the Civil War until yesterday is folderal. I also think the advantages of being absolutely up-to-the-minute are exaggerated. When I consult a good encyclopedia, I want to learn a lot about a subject in a short period of time. The problem is that, in turning to an encyclopedia, I don’t just want to look up a single fact-especially when turning to Britannica. McHenry says Britannica is working on better breaks those in the current on-line version simply occur wherever hypertext markup language headings appear, and most were made by computer, without human intervention. The article on the United States, for instance, runs to an astonishing 300,000 words, the size of two or three regular books. One reason for the bite-size chunks is the length of many Britannica entries. (The CD-ROM edition of Britannica, by the way, suffers from the same problem, since it is basically a snapshot of Britannica Online.)
Unfortunately, it’s hard for this material to cohere as any kind of narrative because, after every couple of hundred words, you have to click “next section.” I found this extremely annoying, and longed for a way to access one long account of the subject, perhaps one that I could print if I wished on my fast laser printer. It included not just official doings, but astrological omens, gladiatorial results and other clear-cut precursors of features in any modern newspaper. For instance, starting in 59 BC the Romans had their Acta Diurna, an official publication written by hand and posted in prominent public places. Look up “newspapers,” for example, and you’ll find wonderful information.
My biggest gripe is that longer articles are divided into brief segments, many filling less than a single screen. Yet another virtue of Britannica Online is that the maddening division of the printed edition into “micropedia” and “macropedia,” deplorably imposed on the 15th edition when it first appeared in 1974, becomes almost invisible, so that I no longer feel I have to look everything up twice.īut the on-line setup isn’t perfect. For instance, adding entries to the on-line version doesn’t mean eliminating others, and a worthy article that comes in unexpectedly long doesn’t have to be cut.
The company says the on-line version already has fully 1,200 articles not in the bound volumes, and Editor in Chief Robert McHenry notes that on-line distribution of the encyclopedia removes a number of constraints that limit the print edition.
MACROPEDIA VS ENCYCLOPEDIA PROFESSIONAL
For instance, an article on Agnes Scott College includes not just a link to the related Britannica topic, “Higher education: colleges, universities, and professional schools,” it also includes a link to the Decatur, Ga., school’s home page.īritannica Online takes further advantage of its medium by covering even more ground than the print edition. Moreover, the on-line version of Britannica makes use of the new medium’s special features. Searches are fast, and the articles, as you might expect, excellent. I’m also happy to report that Britannica Online is great fun. 1118), Latin patriarch of Jerusalem in 1099 and again from 1112 until his death.” Evidently Arnulf never had enough votes to make it until now. And lest anyone think Britannica is abandoning its historic mission, the list of new articles when last I looked included Arnulf of Rohea, “also called ARNULF MALECORNE (d. The article on Lou Gehrig was adjusted with similar dispatch to reflect Cal Ripken’s new consecutive-games record in baseball. Simpson verdict, for instance, made Britannica Online the day the jury announced it. Another nice thing about the on-line version is that it promises to be more current than the print version, which is updated annually.
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