ENCYCLOPAEDIA, A LONG-TIME NEWSPAPER

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 2, 31 January 1944, Page 29

ENCYCLOPAEDIA, A LONG-TIME NEWSPAPER

By

in the Christian Science Monitor

When A “ society of gentlemen ” in Scotland, just 175 years ago, published a set of three leatherbound books “ to diffuse the knowledge of science ” they little realized what they were starting. For how could they have foretold that after a century and three-quarters of continuous growth their encyclopaedia, developed into a 35,000,000-word library, would celebrate its 175th birthday by being given for publication to a university in the United States (a nation which did not yet exist), and that the donor would be an American mail-order house ?

The “ Encyclopaedia Britannica ” has come through its adventures with evergrowing prestige. Now its new owner, the University of Chicago, hopes to accelerate its gradual improvement.

There won’t be any radical change in policy in the management of the Encyclopaedia, however. People who buy it seem to like it just as it is, big words and all. The policy of inviting the world’s most eminent scholars to contribute articles will be continued, although perhaps there will be a trifle less emphasis on famous names. On the whole, however, the new board of trustees is eager to retain the present editorial and promotional set-up which its members think is proving its worth in the quality of the publication.

The only change of importance is that the university faculty will become the official advisory staff of the Encyclopaedia, supervising the continuous revision which the set of books undergoes. Walter Yust, former newspaperman who has edited the Encyclopaedia with distinction for a decade, will continue to boss the job. William Benton, vicepresident of the university and chairman of the Britannica board, is only too glad to have Mr. Yust stay on. At the same time, Mr. Yust, an open-minded, en-

thusiastic person who goes out of his way to get criticism, welcomes the university as a councillor. He thinks the union of the Britannica and the university a happy one, since Chicago from its earliest days pioneered in extension courses for those beyond its campus.

Mr. Yust does not, however, minimize the value of the Encyclopaedia’s sojourn with the mail-order company. He feels it owes its present sound financial condition to a Sears, Roebuck, and Co. official, E. H. Powell, who now has given up that business to become President of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It was Mr. Powell’s bright idea to give away sets of the learned publication to persons who “ stumped the experts ” on the radio programme, “ Information, Please,” thus helping to make its name a friendly word. What’s more, Mr. Powell ended a publication policy that had caused the owners of the Britannica plenty of worry all down the years. This was the policy of putting out completely revised editions at widely separated intervals. For experience showed that when a new edition was in preparation —and it took ten years or so to do the job —no one wanted to buy new sets. “ We’ll wait till the new edition is out,” was the general attitude. Meantime, with sales at a standstill, the company had to spend about $2,000,000 for the revision. None could stand it. Mr. Powell changed all this. There are no more spectacular new editions. Instead, about io per cent, of the work is revised each year. At the end of a decade, a complete revision has been accomplished —and there has been no interruption of business. The editorial staff, too, has been able to work more calmly.

It was during one of these periodic crises that Sears acquired the Encyclopaedia. During the first World War

Sears put a “ handy edition ” of the work into their catalogue as a saleable article of merchandise. Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, and a man deeply interested in promoting education, thus got acquainted with the Encyclopaedia publishing business. When, in 1920, the company then owning Britannica went bankrupt and the plates were threatened with destruction, Mr. Rosenwald persuaded his company to put $1,000,000 into the business and save it. Eventually Sears invested $2,500,000 in the Encyclopaedia. For the last five years it has made money for the company and proved itself a sound investment.

Notwithstanding that fact, Sears didn’t want to maintain the responsibility of publishing so scholarly a work. The president of Sears calls the relationship ” anomalous and accidental.” After all, Sears’ business is selling farm implements and radios and clothing and such things. So, even though the prestige of the publication among scholars had grown under mail-order-house management, the board of that organization offered it to the University of Chicago as a gift.

Now the university finds itself owner and publisher of the “ Encyclopaedia Britannica Year Book,” the “ Britannica Junior,” and the “ Britannica World Atlas.” At the same time it has acquired a business with some 600 door-to-door salesmen, a publishing staff of 35, and with some 3,500 editorial contributorsleading scholars of the world. But it has acquired something more than a paying business. It has accepted a grave responsibility as the compiler of knowledge for the English-speaking peoples. The Britannica is not now, and never has been, English. The three gentlemen who originated it were Scots and were thinking, no doubt, of the Empire when they called it Britannica. Now there are distributing companies in England, Canada, and in South Africa. Before the war about one-third of the sales were in the dominions, two-thirds in the United States.

The publishers of the fourteenth edition recognized its international scope when they dedicated it to “ two heads of the English-speaking peoples,” Franklin D. Roosevelt and His Majesty George VI.

The editorial staff has an elaborate system of checking, double-checking, and rechecking to keep the work accurate. Scholars, experts in their fields, read what other scholars have contributed and do not hesitate to criticize. The editor strives for accuracy and impartiality, but world events have a way of upsetting his efforts. Of course, some articles never go out of date. Mr. Yust doesn’t have to worry about the timeliness of Macaulay’s famous article on Samuel Johnson, written for the Encyclopaedia. That is literature. Nor does Professor Albert Einstein’s article on his own theory of space-time, which he wrote for Britannica, need editing.

On the other hand, authors of historical and economic articles who may be leaders in their fields can go out of date. The eminent economist who wrote an article in the prosperous ’twenties, saying there would be no more depressions, was a big name in his field, but his statement caused the publishers some embarrassment, when they came across it during the difficult days after the crash of ’29.

Because time does change men’s ideas and knowledge, sometimes rapidly, the publishers see to it that every article is read critically once every five years, by some one who knows the subject thoroughly. They would rather catch outmoded statements and errors themselves than wait for some vigilant reader to write in. Criticism, however, is always welcomed. When Mary Beard, historian and feminist, complained to the editor that women didn’t get their share of biographies, Mr. Yust checked up and found she was right. Of the 13,000 biographies in the work, less than 800 were of women. Mr. Yust immediately invited Mrs. Beard to direct his staff in determining which feminine notables had been omitted and should be included in future printings.

Some corrections are of minute errors. A Chinese scholar wrote in the other day to note that the apostrophe in a certain Chinese proper name faced the wrong way.

“ The correction will cost 78 cents,” said Mr. Yust. He thinks it worth it.

A research staff of the Britannica is kept busy reading current news to select matter for the Year Book. The annual, in turn, is sifted for material to go into the Encyclopaedia.

“ We think of the Encyclopaedia as a long-time newspaper,” says Mr. Yust.

Through its 175 years of experience, the editing techniques of the Encyclopaedia have been developed to a high degree of efficiency. William Smelley, the first editor, frankly did a scissors and paste-pot job. Except for the beautiful line drawings and engravings of Andrew Bell, one of the early owners, there was nothing original in the three volumes.

Mr. Smelley gave credit to a long list of authors from whom he had ‘ borrowed ” his information.

Now, with 3,500 contributors, editing is a complicated matter. To make sure that the facts in the thousands of articles are not contradictory, a system of crossindexing has been devised which would delight an efficiency expert. Although Mr. Yust himself has never read the whole Encyclopaedia, with his card index he can answer just about any question about anything in the set. Thanks to the cards, when a fact is changed in one article it can be quickly corrected in every other one which may use it.