Solving the PC Data Storage Problem
Next Britannica editor Warren Preece had been able to foresee the possibility of an optical disc encyclopedia because of breakthrough engineering developments that had taken place in Europe and Japan. Klass Compaan, a physicist with Philips research based [...]
Reinventing the Encyclopedia in Electronic Form
Next Warren E. Preece, Encyclopaedia Britannica Editor In 1981, Tom Goetz’s retired predecessor Warren Preece published “Notes Towards a New Encyclopedia.” In this article, Preece described the coming electronic encyclopedia. As one of the architects of [...]
Charles Van Doren, EB Editorial Vice President
Next Charles Van Doren In 1962, Adler’s young friend and acolyte Charles Van Doren had received a suspended sentence following his conviction in New York State for perjury in the investigation into the fixed television game [...]
Mortimer Adler, Philosopher
Next Mortimer J. Adler, a precocious student (and later critic) of philosopher John Dewey at Columbia University, had also been attracted to the University of Chicago in the 1930s. Hutchins had found appointments for him in philosophy and [...]
Robert Hutchins, University of Chicago President
Next Benton had been recruited to the University of Chicago in 1937 by his fellow student in the Yale College Class of 1924, then Chicago’s president, Robert Maynard Hutchins. Hutchins was one of the 20th century’s most prominent [...]
William Benton, EB Owner and Publisher
Next William Benton, Publisher of Encyclopaedia Britannica Paralleling this whole development of the computer, encyclopedists at Encyclopaedia Britannica had been thinking long and hard about the proper structure of a modern encyclopedia and how it might [...]
The Encyclopedist’s Art
Next In the twentieth century, encyclopedists were not the only people to worry about how to facilitate access to an ever-growing sum of knowledge. The problem arising from the information explosion of modern times was also noticed by [...]
A Milestone in Evolution of the Human/Machine Interface
Next Who would have guessed that at the end of the 20th century it would be a company founded in Scotland in 1768 that would invent a key part of the mechanics that would let people intuitively navigate [...]
The Encyclopædia Britannica First Edition
Next The three-volume First Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica paid homage to its classical roots in two conspicuous ways. One was a departure from the conventional spelling of encyclopedia. The use of the æ ligature preserved an ancient [...]
