Mar

19

Encyclopedic Knowledge.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

March 19, 2008 |

A recent article in The New York times details how the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the multi-volume reference work that used to be standard on bookshelves in homes and libraries everywhere, is in serious decline, and, like many other reference works (including encyclopedias in Germany, France, and Denmark) may be going exclusively online. Sales peaked in 1990, but had dropped by sixty percent by 1996, and are now down to just ten percent of what they once were. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand the printed reference book seems like an unnecessarily clunky thing to have around. It would be impossible to produce a printed reference book that could be really useful, have the most accurate, detailed, and up-to-date information, and still be small enough to fit on a shelf. And unless you’re planning to buy several throughout the year, count on some significant information–particularly deaths of notable people–not being there. While I’ve previously defended printed books, and still believe in the value of printed books, making reference works available online–in fact, making them exclusively online and putting all the resources that used to go into printing, shipping, selling, and lugging around big multi-volume sets–seems like a really good idea.

At the same time let’s not lose sight of the fact that online reference works will still have their problems. Malicious and untrue allegations about publisher John Siegenthaler, Sr. were added to Wikipedia and went uncorrected (some sources say “unnoticed” but can’t confirm that) for weeks. An organization called Wikipedia Watch tries to keep an eye on, or at least raise serious questions about, the online reference work, but a source that can be edited by anyone at any time can never really be reliable. As Mark Twain once said, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” And I still occasionally get forwarded an e-mail consisting of quirky, interesting “facts”, including the claim that your hair and nails continue to grow after death. In case you still believe that, I’m sorry to inform you they don’t. After death the body loses water so the skin shrinks, causing the hair and nails to appear to grow. That’s just one small example of a benign untruth that people believe because, hey, everyone knows it’s true. Electronic publishing doesn’t prevent errors or even malicious and false statements–it just increases the speed with which they can be disseminated and shot down. If the overwhelming amount of information we have available to us teaches us anything, it’s that everyone has an agenda or a bias of some sort. It’s inescapable. It’s part of being human. Even the best of us fall prey to our own prejudices. Once, during an argument with a friend I realized I was defending an indefensible position and gave up. As a small consolation he said, “Face it: sometimes the facts are biased.”

And then there’s the possibility of information being lost. The LOCKSS (Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe) program initiated by Stanford University Libraries is one example of a dedicated effort to preserve online information, but ultimately it may be impossible to really preserve all books and all information. In a large and complex world sometimes information is going to be lost, and not everything can be preserved.


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