Encyclopedias

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Encyclopedias

• Sajjad ur Rehman

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Purpose

• Ready reference source
• Secondary source
• Provide general overview of a topic and the
  background information
• Pointers to serious research
• Bibliographies guide to extensive sources

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Categories

• Format
• Print
• Electronic available on CD and online
• Coverage
• Knowledge-based
• Subject

• Age groups
• Children
• Young adults
• Adults
• Specialists
• Treatment
• General
• Scholarly

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Evaluation Criteria

• Scope
• Emphasis age group or subject
• Authority publisher, contributors
• Writing style readability, quality

• Currency
• Objectivity
• Indexing features
• Arrangement and entries
• Special features
• Cost

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Electronic Encyclopedias

• Terminology
• Interactive
• Multimedia
• Electronic
• Availability
• Web sites of publishers
• Online systems
• CD-ROM version

• Free domain encyclopedias
• Currency
• Searching edge

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Features of Electronic Encyclopedias

• Direct links
• Hyper links
• Related articles
• Multimedia features
• Search history
• Timeline
• Knowledge Trees

• Maps and atlases with zooms
• Searching features
• Browse
• Boolean
• Combination options
• Special features

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General Encyclopedias

• Americana
• Britannica
• World Book
• Encarta
• Grolier
• Compton
• Wikipedia

• New Standard Encyclopedia
• Academic American
• The New Book of Knowledge
• Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia

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Subject Encyclopedias

• Scholarly or technical in nature
• Contributors are experts
• Detailed and specialized treatment
• Mostly bland, low on graphics
• Not as readable
• Many of them yet not converted to electronic
  version

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Internet Encyclopedia Wikipedia The Free
Encyclopedia

• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
• Free encyclopedia
• Community concept anyone can contribute
• 1,073,913 articles in English
• Featured articles reviewed for accuracy,
  neutrality, completenessonly 946
• Day-to-day developments in current events
• Search and A-Z index features