Encyclopedias

From phoebewiki

Indeed, the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around the globe; to set forth its general system to the men with whom we live, and transmit it to those who will come after us, so that the work of preceding centuries will not become useless to the centuries to come; and so that our offspring, becoming better instructed, will at the same time become more virtuous and happy, and that we should not die without having rendered a service to the human race.

It would have been difficult to propose a more extensive object than covering everything related to human curiosity, duty, needs, and pleasures. For this reason some persons accustomed to judge the possibilities of an enterprise by the limited resources they recognize in themselves have pronounced that we will never bring ours to completion. -- Diderot [1]

Contents 1 Encyclopedia book 1.1 outlines 1.2 case studies 2 Bibliography 3 Open questions

Encyclopedia book

this is a different but also extremely awesome book

outlines

encyclopedias in context:

• The first thousand years
• The following hundred years
• The following decade
• This year
• The next decade
• The next hundred years
• The next thousand years

alternatively

• why encyclopedias?
• what (was published?)
• how and who (published them)?
• what (do they mean)?
• the current state of affairs and
• where do we go from here

alternatively

• a cultural context, and
• philosophical dialog, punctuated with:
• a few awesome case studies, such as:
  • chambers
  • diderot
  • arabic..
  • britannica
  • (specialized one)
  • wp

alternatively, straight historical

• Ancient China
• Pliny and the Middle Ages
• Chambers and Diderot
• The Golden Age: Chambers, Winkler Prins, Britannica, etc.
• Door to door: World Book, 1911
• specialized encyclopedias: national encyclopedias, scientific encyclopedias
• online encyclopedias: encarta et al
• Wikipedia, and the future

case studies

• laundry list, in many languages, plus case studies:
• (see list above)
• encyclopedias/yongle
• encyclopedias/chambers
• Diderot: enlightenment in a nutshell. Physical copies are abroad (british library, also paris?), likely digitized somewhere, reprints & translations abound.
• Britannica: obviously great, talk about phenomena of encyclopedia salesmen; role of knowledge in american/british culture, "well educated household" archival copies of old editions?? (maybe LOC?)
• other langs -- I don't know, v. lame, should reach out to non-anglophone works

Bibliography

• works by Yeo (encyclo scholar)
• women, fire & dangerous things (classification treatise)

from WP:

• EtymologyOnline
• Bergenholtz, H., Nielsen, S., Tarp, S. (eds.): Lexicography at a Crossroads: Dictionaries and Encyclopedias Today, Lexicographical Tools Tomorrow. Peter Lang 2009. ISBN 978-3-03911-799-4
• Blom Phillip, Enlightening the World: Encyclopaedie, the Book that Changed the Course of History, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)
• Collison, Robert, Encyclopaedias: Their History Throughout the Ages, 2nd ed. (New York, London: Hafner, 1966)
• Darnton, Robert, The business of enlightenment : a publishing history of the Encyclopédie, 1775–1800 (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1979) ISBN 0-674-08785-2
• Kafker, Frank A. (ed.), Notable encyclopedias of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: nine predecessors of the Encyclopédie (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1981) ISBN
• Kafker, Frank A. (ed.), Notable encyclopedias of the late eighteenth century: eleven successors of the Encyclopédie (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1994) ISBN
• Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 7, Military Technology; the Gunpowder Epic. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.
• Rozenzweig, Roy. "Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past." Journal of American History Volume 93, Number 1 (June, 2006): 117–46. Also available online here from the Center for History and New Media.
• Walsh, S. Padraig, Anglo-American general encyclopedias: a historical bibliography, 1703–1967 (New York: Bowker, 1968, 270 pp.) Includes a historical bibliography, arranged alphabetically, with brief notes on the history of many encyclopedias; a chronology; indexes by editor and publisher; bibliography; and 18 pages of notes from a 1965 American Library Association symposium on encyclopedias.
• Yeo, Richard R., Encyclopaedic visions : scientific dictionaries and enlightenment culture (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001) ISBN 0-521-65191-3

Open questions

• what would you like to learn from such a book?