An encyclopedia is essentially a book or a volume of books which contain general information about either a specific branch of knowledge or all branches of knowledge. Encyclopedias are usually divided into articles, each one covering a particular subject. These articles are classified alphabetically and could be contained in a single or multiple volumes.
The word encyclopedia comes from enkyklia paideia, a Greek term that means “a general knowledge” or “a well-rounded education” and has been used for at least five centuries. It was first used in 1559 when Encyclopaedia, or the Knowledge of the World of Disciplines, was published. French philosopher and writer Denis Diderot stated that the purpose of any encyclopedia was to gather knowledge from around the globe and to provide the knowledge to the people of today and to the people who will live in the next generations.
The encyclopedia has actually been developed from the dictionary back in the 18th century. A dictionary basically gives the definitions of words, along with its analysis, background and other limited information. However, although the general definition of the word is given, it does not offer a complete understanding of the word and how it relates to a broader area or field of knowledge.
To be able to address this need for comprehensive information, the encyclopedia was developed. It contains articles that not only cover words and their basic meanings but also covers their subjects and related fields of knowledge. Words and terms are treated in more depth. Encyclopedias also offer relevant images, maps and other illustrations, along with statistics and bibliography. A similarity between a dictionary and an encyclopedia would be that they have both been well-researched and written by well-informed and well-educated content experts.
The four major elements of an encyclopedia would be: the subject matter; the scope; the method of organization; and the method of production.
1. The subject matter of encyclopedias is general. They contain articles on subjects in every field of study. Some of the popular examples of encyclopedias today would be the German Brockhaus and the Encyclopedia Britannica. General encyclopedias usually contain numerous guides about how to do different things, along with some gazetteers and dictionaries. There are also some encyclopedias which cover an extensive variety of subjects but from a specific ethnic, cultural or national perspective like the Encyclopedia Judaica, an encyclopedia with 26 volumes discussing Judaism or the Jewish faith and its people and the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, one of the most comprehensive Russian encyclopedias.
2. Works that have an encyclopedia scope usually aim to provide the essential accumulated knowledge and information for a particular subject domain. Some examples would be an encyclopedia of philosophy, medicine or law. They vary in their depth of discussion and span of material, depending on their target audience.
3. A systematic organizational method is essential in order to make an encyclopedia functional as a reference or as a knowledge database. Historically, there have been two methods of organizing encyclopedias and these would be: alphabetically or by hierarchical categories. The more commonly used method today would be alphabetically, especially for general works. However, with the development of the fluidity of electronic media, a lot of new possibilities have been brought forward for many other methods of content organization. Electronic media also offer other capabilities and features such as searching, indexing and cross referencing.
4. The information age and modern multimedia have also influenced the collection, verification and summation as well as the production and presentation of encyclopedias. As a matter of fact, encyclopedias are not only available in print and in CDs or DVDs, but also over the web. Some examples of online encyclopedias would include Wikipedia, Encarta and Everything2. Wikipedia is probably the most popular of all online encyclopedias. Aside from having extensive information on a broad variety of subjects, Wikipedia is also considered as a “wiki” or a type of website that makes the collaboration of information easy since readers can contribute as well.