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An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, or a digital encyclopedia, is an
encyclopedia An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...
accessible through the
internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
. Examples include
Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
and ''
Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various time ...
''.


Digitization of old content

In January 1995,
Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...
started to publish the ASCII text of the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), but disagreement about the method halted the work after the first volume. For trademark reasons this has been published as the Gutenberg Encyclopedia. Project Gutenberg later restarted work on digitising and proofreading this encyclopedia. Project Gutenberg has published volumes in alphabetic order; the most recent publication is ''Volume 17 Slice 8: Matter–Mecklenburg'' published on 7 April 2013. The latest ''Britannica'' was digitized by its publishers, and sold first as a CD-ROM, and later as an online service. In 2001, ASCII text of all 28 volumes was published on ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Eleventh Edition by source; a copyright claim was added to the materials included. The website no longer exists. Other digitization projects have made progress in other titles. One example is ''
Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897) The ''Illustrated Bible Dictionary'', better known as ''Easton's Bible Dictionary'', is a reference work on topics related to the Christianity, Christian Bible, compiled by Matthew George Easton. The first edition was published in 1893, and a r ...
'' digitized by the
Christian Classics Ethereal Library The Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) is a digital library that provides free electronic copies of Christian scripture and literature texts. Description CCEL is a volunteer-based project founded and directed by Harry Plantinga, a pr ...
. A successful digitization of an encyclopedia was the
Bartleby Project John Taylor Gatto (December 15, 1935 – October 25, 2018) was an American author and school teacher. After teaching for nearly 30 years he authored several books on modern education, criticizing its ideology, history, and consequences. He is b ...
's online adaptation of the ''
Columbia Encyclopedia The ''Columbia Encyclopedia'' is a one-volume encyclopedia produced by Columbia University Press and, in the last edition, sold by the Gale Group. First published in 1935, and continuing its relationship with Columbia University, the encyclopedi ...
'', Sixth Edition, in early 2000 and is updated periodically. Other websites provide online encyclopedias, some of which are also available on
Wikisource Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually rep ...
, but which may be more complete than those on Wikisource, or maybe different editions (see List of online encyclopedias).


Creation of new content

Another related branch of activity is the creation of new, free content on a volunteer basis. In 1991, the participants of the
Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...
newsgroup started a project to produce a real version of ''
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comic science fiction, comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally The Hitchhiker's Guide to th ...
'', a fictional encyclopedia used in the works of
Douglas Adams Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author and screenwriter, best known for ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' developed into a " ...
. It became known as Project Galactic Guide. Although it originally aimed to contain only real, factual articles, the policy was changed to allow and encourage semi-real and unreal articles as well. Project Galactic Guide contains over 1700 articles, but no new articles have been added since 2000; this is probably partly due to the founding of
h2g2 The h2g2 website is a British-based collaborative online encyclopedia project. It describes itself as "an unconventional guide to life, the universe, and everything", in the spirit of the fictional publication '' The Hitchhiker's Guide to ...
, a more official project along similar lines. The 1993
Interpedia Interpedia was the first-proposed online encyclopedia which would allow anyone to contribute by writing articles and submitting them to the central catalogue of all Interpedia pages. History Interpedia was initiated by Rick Gates, who posted a ...
proposal was planned as an encyclopedia on the Internet to which everyone could contribute materials. The project never left the planning stage and was overtaken by a key branch of old printed encyclopedias. Another early online encyclopedia was called the ''Global Encyclopedia''. In November 1995 a review of it was presented by James Rettig (Assistant Dean of University Libraries for Reference and Information Services)
College of William & Mary The College of William & Mary (officially The College of William and Mary in Virginia, abbreviated as William & Mary, W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William III ...
at the 15th Annual Charleston Conference on library acquisitions and related issues. He said of the ''Global Encyclopedia'': He then gives several examples of article entries such as
Iowa City Iowa City, offically the City of Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. It is the home of the University of Iowa and county seat of Johnson County, at the center of the Iowa City Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the time ...
:
Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
is a free content, multilingual online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteer contributors through a model of
open collaboration Open collaboration is any "system of innovation or production that relies on goal-oriented yet loosely coordinated participants who interact to create a product (or service) of economic value, which is made available to contributors and noncontribu ...
. It is the largest and most-read
reference work A reference work is a work, such as a paper, book or periodical (or their electronic equivalents), to which one can refer for information. The information is intended to be found quickly when needed. Such works are usually ''referred'' to f ...
in history, Wikipedia originally developed from another encyclopedia project called
Nupedia Nupedia was an English-language, online encyclopedia whose articles were written by volunteer contributors with appropriate subject matter expertise, reviewed by expert editors before publication, and licensed as free content. It was founded by ...
.


See also

* Open online encyclopedia *
Digital library A digital library, also called an online library, an internet library, a digital repository, or a digital collection is an online database of digital objects that can include text, still images, audio, video, digital documents, or other digital me ...
*
Lists of encyclopedias For lists of encyclopedias, see: * List of encyclopedias by branch of knowledge * List of encyclopedias by date * List of encyclopedias by language * List of online encyclopedias See also * Bibliography of encyclopedias * List of almanacs * ...
*
Reference software {{Unreferenced, date=September 2007 Reference software is software which emulates and expands upon print reference forms including the dictionary, translation dictionary, encyclopaedia, thesaurus, and atlas. Like print references, reference softwa ...


References


External links

* {{Use dmy dates, date=July 2020 Internet