Encyclopedia Americana

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Encyclopedia Americana at University of Göttingen library.

The Encyclopedia Americana is one of the largest general encyclopedias in the English language (after the Encyclopædia Britannica). As the name suggests, it is produced in the United States and is aimed mainly at the North American market; it is, however, also sold in Asia and elsewhere. The encyclopedia has more than 45,000 articles, most of them of the long-entry variety (500 words or more) and many running to considerable length (the "United States" article is over 300,000 words long). The work's coverage of American and Canadian geography and history has been a traditional strength, but its lead here has dwindled in recent years under the pressures of electronic publishing. Written by 6,500 contributors, the Americana includes over 9,000 bibliographies, 150,000 cross-references, 1,000+ tables, 1,200 maps, and almost 4,500 black-and-white line art and color images. It also has 680 factboxes. Most articles are signed by their contributors.

Currently, the encyclopedia is produced by Scholastic Library Publishing, a division of Scholastic Inc. that grew out of the company's acquisition of Grolier Inc. in 2000 (see below). Long available as a 30-volume print set (29 vols. plus Index), the Americana is now marketed as an online encyclopedia requiring a subscription. As of 2007, Scholastic has not announced plans to alter the publication schedule of the print set, but it is notable that the 2006 print edition was not followed by a 2007 edition, suggesting a curtailment or phasing-out. (Previously, each year saw the release of a revised print edition.)

The online version of the Encyclopedia Americana, first introduced in 1997, continues to be updated (nominally) and sold. This work, like the print set from which it is derived, is designed for high school and first-year college students along with public library users. It is available to libraries as one of the options in the Grolier Online reference service, which also includes the Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, intended for middle and high school students, and the New Book of Knowledge, an encyclopedia for elementary school students. Grolier Online also offers a Spanish language student encyclopedia and additional student references covering science, nations and peoples, animals, and the states of the United States and Mexico. Grolier Online is not available to individual subscribers.

[edit] Early history

This 1921 advertisement for the Encyclopedia Americana suggests that other encyclopedias are as out-of-date as the locomotives of 90 years earlier.

The Encyclopædia Americana. A popular dictionary of arts, sciences, literature, history, politics and biography, brought down to the present time; including a copious collection of original articles in American biography; on the basis of the 7th ed. of the German Conversations-Lexicon was founded by German-born Francis Lieber. After Dobson's Encyclopædia (published 1789-1798), it was the first significant American encyclopedia. Although based on Brockhaus' Conversations-Lexikon, it had significant added and rewritten material. Like that work, it was written in an accessible style and intended for general (rather than scholarly) use.

The first edition comprised 13 volumes and was published between 1829 and 1833 by Carey, Lea & Carey of Philadelphia; in 1846, a supplementary fourteenth volume was issued. Later editions and reprints were published, to considerable acclaim, through 1858. In 1848, John Sutter used the set^[1] to verify the authenticity of the gold found in his mill, a discovery that would start the California Gold Rush.

A separate "Encyclopedia Americana," published by J.M. Stoddart, was printed between 1883 and 1889, as a supplement to American reprintings of the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Stoddart's work, however, is not connected to the earlier work by Lieber.^[2]

In 1902 a new version in 16 volumes that carried over some of the old material was published under the title Encyclopedia Americana, under the editorial supervision of Scientific American magazine. The magazine's editor, Frederick Converse Beach, was editor-in-chief, and was said to be assisted by hundreds of eminent scholars and authorities who served as consulting editors or authors. The first publisher was R.S. Peale & Co; between 1903 and 1906 further editions were issued by the Americana Corp. and the Scientific American Compiling Department. The relationship with Scientific American was terminated in 1911.^[3] From 1907 to 1912, the work was published as The Americana.

A major new edition of the Encyclopedia Americana appeared in 1918-20 in 30 volumes, under the editorship of George Edward Rines. An Annual or Yearbook was also published each year beginning in 1923 (and continuing until 2000).

The Grolier Building at 575 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan

The encyclopedia was purchased by the Grolier Society, commercial publishing wing of the Grolier Club, in 1945. By the 1960s sales of the Americana and its sister publications under Grolier — The Book of Knowledge, the Book of Popular Science, and Lands and Peoples — were strong enough to support the company's occupancy of a large building (variously named the Americana Building and the Grolier Building) in Midtown Manhattan, at 575 Lexington Avenue. Sales during this period were accomplished primarily through mail-order and door-to-door operations. Telemarketing and third-party distribution (through a division named Lexicon) added to sales volumes in the 1970s.

[edit] Later developments

In 1988 Grolier was purchased by the French media company Hachette (publishing), which owned a well-known French-language encyclopedia, the Hachette Encyclopedia. Hachette was later absorbed by the French conglomerate the Lagardère Group. Following the acquisition, Grolier moved its operations to Danbury, Connecticut.

A CD-ROM version of the Encyclopedia Americana was published in 1995. The system was awkward to use (text and images were stored on separate disks) but was in keeping with standards current at the time. More importantly, the work had been digitized, allowing for release of an online version in 1997. Over the next few years the product was augmented with additional features and functions (supplementary references, Internet links, a current events journal, and so on). A redesigned interface and partly reengineered product, featuring enhanced search capabilities and a first-ever ADA-compliant, text-only version for users with disabilities, was presented in 2002.

The acquisition of Grolier by Scholastic, for a price of $400 million, took place in 2000. The new owners projected a 30% increase in operating income, although historically Grolier had experienced earnings of 7% to 8% on income.^[4] Staff reductions as a means of controlling costs followed soon thereafter, even while an effort was made to augment the sales force. Cuts occurred every year between 2000 and 2007, leaving a much-depleted work force to carry out the duties of maintaining a large encyclopedia database.^[5] Scholastic, which specializes in works for the K-8 market, has sought to position the Americana as a reference resource for schools. It remains to be seen whether that strategy, applied to a venerable upper-level (even adult-level) publication, will work in the long run.

[edit] Editors of the Encyclopedia Americana

• Francis Lieber, 1829-1833. German-American legal scholar; author of "A Code for the Government of Armies" (1863), a key document in the history of the humanitarian treatment of prisoners of war.
• Frederick Converse Beach, 1902-1917. Engineer and editor of Scientific American magazine.
• George Edwin Rines, 1917-1920. Author and editor.
• A. H. McDannald, 1920-1948. Reporter (Baltimore News and Baltimore Evening Sun), editor, and author.
• Lavinia P. Dudley, 1948-1964. Editor (Encyclopaedia Britannica and Encyclopedia Americana) and manager; first woman to head a major American reference publication.
• George A. Cornish, 1965-1970. Reporter (New York Herald Tribune) and editor.
• Bernard S. Cayne, 1970-1980. Educational researcher (Educational Testing Service, Harvard Educational Review), editor (Ginn & Co., Collier's Encyclopedia, Macmillan) and business executive (Grolier Inc.).
• Alan H. Smith, 1980-1985. Editor (Grolier/Encyclopedia Americana)
• David T. Holland, 1985-1991. Editor (Harcourt Brace, Grolier/Encyclopedia Americana).
• Mark Cummings, 1991-2000. Editor (Macmillan, Oxford University Press).
• Michael Shally-Jensen, 2000-2005. Editor (Merriam-Webster/Encyclopaedia Britannica).
• K. Anne Ranson, 2005-2006. Editor (Academic American Encyclopedia, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia).
• Joseph P. Castagno, 2006-present. Editor (Grolier/Lands and Peoples, New Book of Popular Science).

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Collison, Robert, Encyclopedias: Their History throughout the Ages (New York: Hafner, 1964).
• Walsh, S. Padraig, Anglo-American General Encyclopedias: A Historical Bibliography, 1703-1967 (New York: Bowker, 1968).

[edit] See also

• List of encyclopedias

[edit] External links

• 1851 Encyclopaedia Americana transformed to wiki.
• Text and images of the 1851 Encyclopaedia Americana at the University of Michigan's Making of America site.
• Online Encyclopedia Americana (allows browsing some articles and has an "About" page)