NOTE: Earlier this month the National Library of Scotland made a digitized copy of the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s first edition available to download.
Additionally, HathiTrust Provides Searchable/Browsable Access to Vols. 1-30.
From CBS News:
Americans are awash in information. Most of us walk around with devices that give us instant access to all the knowledge in human history. But before you could Google it, and long before we met Alexa, there was Britannica.
As in Encyclopedia Britannica, which turns 250 years old this month.
“Britannica did something unique,” said executive editor Ted Pappas. “It combined long, scholarly essays with short definitional entries and practical information.”
Founded in 1768 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Britannica was the brainchild of Colin Macfarquhar, a printer, and Andrew Bell, an engraver. They also had an editor, William Smellie. “He was a very learned man,” Pappas said, with (he added) a wonderful capacity for drinking.
Read the Complete Text Article
Video Segment From CBS Sunday Morning
See Also: Encyclopaedia Britannica, in Business For 250 Years, Hoping For 250 More (via Chicago Sun Times)
About Gary Price
