In a class of its own.

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I devoted much more time than I really had available to researching encyclopedias and their history on the web. Most of what I found was shallow advice to students along the lines of when they should use one, and perhaps the difference between a general and a more specific encyclopedia, though occasionally I encountered an interesting discussion of the essence of encyclopedias. Very little went into any detail.

Admittedly, the Wikipedia itself has a very well prepared entry on encyclopedias, but the best was ... in print. It took me about two minutes to find ten information packed pages on the subject in the Britannica. Even though encyclopedias give us introductory material, overviews, what I found in those pages was much more comprehensive than what I was able to find on the web.

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Go to: Too Common Knowledge.