What’s so special about the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica?
In canon, the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica is the #1 most used and most referenced written resource, bar none, because pretty much everyone uses it. Characters use it to see if they were remembered in the future. They check artwork and sometimes copy it. They look for information on where to find resources such as minerals. They get gadgets for making work go faster. Truly, it’s an all-purpose resource.
But why the 1911 version and not a newer one? Simple, really: the tech was closer to 1632 tech in 1911 than in 1999. A 1999 encyclopedia is more likely to cite electronics and technology that simply won’t be widely available in the 1630s. The 1911 one is from a time before widespread electricity, motorized cars, convenience foods, and all the other things we take for granted.
1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica (EB11)
How do we, writers in the twenty-first century, look at it? After all, it’s a rare person who still has an encyclopedia in there home, much less something as specific as the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica! The most convenient way is finding an online copy. There have been several over the years, and sometimes one disappears and we have to wait for a new one. Currently, it’s on WikiSource but is not complete.
Two online resources which would appear to have most of the content, with caveats, are:
- Online 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/) This website has several online encyclopedias. The EB11 isn’t on there right now, but it has been in the past and may be again in the future. However, there are other encyclopedias that may be of interest, including:
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- Online Encyclopedia – LoveToKnow (http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/) I looked up a couple of entries that had pictures “Project Guttenburg” extract but did not find them here. Found ‘ANEMOMETER’ missing.
Other Options
Project Guttenburg A ‘slice’ of Vol 2. HTML version includes pictures. Quality seems Good, but there is not much of it. This would seem to be the best option if they ever finish it.
They are all referred to in Wikipedia under “Encyclopædia Britannica”. The Encyclopaedia Britannica web site has no references to EB11.
Wikipedia includes 1911 material (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:1911_Encyclopedia_topics) but it would not appear to be possible to isolate the 1911 content. This also points to “Project Guttenburg” Distributed ProofReaders. You need to be registered, but this would give you access to the scanned pages online.
In the past, writers have purchased the “Spinsmart Disk”, which was about 4.3GB, duplicated rather than pressed. The quality of the images is good. Each tif file is a single page. There is a subdirectory for each volume and a indices subdirectory with a file for each volume. Where an entry covers more than 1 page there are multiple entries in the volumes index.