Journal: Global Journal of Classical Theology
Volume: GJCT 12:2 (Jul 2015)
Article: A Note From Our Editor: The Demise Of The Encyclopaedia Britannica
Author: John Warwick Montgomery

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A Note From Our Editor: The Demise Of The Encyclopaedia Britannica

John Warwick Montgomery

We are informed that the Encyclopaedia Britannica is ceasing publication. This announcement has produced a veritable hew and cry. Thus the Zionica.com news website (27/3/2012) titles its short article on the subject: “Why the Demise of the Encyclopedia [sic] Britannica means the End of Western Civilization.” Really??

The EB began in England in the 18^th century (1^ST ed. In 2 vols., 1768–1771); it eventually crossed the Atlantic and modern editions were published in Chicago. The most valuable editions were the 9^th (1875–1889) and the 11^th (1911). As Constance M. Winchell’s standard Guide to Reference Books, 7^th ed., 1951, put it, these great editions employed a “fundamental plan which called for a collection of important monographs on large subjects, by specialists, often very scholarly and important, with good bibliographies.” But with the 14^th edition (1949) “the traditional monographic policy has been largely abandoned in favor of shorter articles.” “Continuous revision” is now employed—meaning that articles are subject to silent updating in subsequent printings.

When I was taking a graduate library science degree (B.L.S.) at the University of California at Berkeley, the professor of reference materials warned us of the dangers of relying on the EB from the 14^th edition on: one was never sure of the actual date of a given article and many articles were unsigned. Later, during my time as head librarian of the Divinity and Philosophy (Swift) Library at the University of Chicago, I encountered callow grad students and recent graduates preparing unsigned articles for the EB—a far cry from the authoritative articles by specialists comprising the bulk of the 11^th edition (and the 12^th and 13^th, for that matter, since these were really the 11^th edition with supplementary volumes).

As a professor advising undergraduate and graduate students in the preparation of research papers, theses, and dissertations, I have insisted on a bright-line rule: never cite unsigned encyclopedia articles. Such articles (including, to be sure, Wikipedia articles on the net) are of value only by way of the bibliographies they include and as intermediate links to authoritative, signed articles or books by specialists. My personal library contains the EB 11^th edition, but I would never have purchased the 14^th.

So does western civilization end with the demise of the Britannica? Hardly. It is ironic that the mass of unsigned, “continuously revised” information freely available through net searching has...

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