It's not just inked anymore

What do you think of when you hear the word encyclopedia? Several shelves of dark colored thick volumes with gold lettering on the spines and big numbers or letters at the bottom of the spine...the traditional 22 volumes of print....with an index that you might consider using if you're really into cross referencing?

Yes, that was the style encyclopedia I used for many years. In my earliest library days there were CD's that could be loaded on a computer. Then encyclopedias became available through a subscription service online. Wiki-pedia, the people's encyclopedia, became the free way online to find pop culture information (and quick facts). So what was a self respecting encyclopedia publisher to do?

Encyclopedia Britannica has moved well into the 21st century. I attended one of their webinars and came away thinking - this isn't the encyclopedia anymore!

It's a portal of information- full text articles from EB, magazine and journal articles from ProQuest and Ebsco, web sites vetted by humans, images, video-clips, and time lines. There are enough links within each page to make the most ardent web surfer happy.

Best of all you can create Workspaces and collect all those links into your personal library on a topic. We're going to use the workspace option for our History classes and English classes. We have collected web sites on delicious but this will add another dimension- best of all the link to the workspace can be e-mailed (or saved on delicious)!

What a wonderful well rounded resource the encyclopedia has become. It's available through GALILEO. You may get the password to use GALILEO at home from your Georgia librarian!


-kls