Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: When was the first publication of the Encyclopedia Britannica?
The Encyclopædia Britannica First Edition (1768–1771) is a 3-volume reference work, an edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. It was developed during the encyclopaedia's earliest period as a two-man operation founded by Colin Macfarquhar and Andrew Bell, in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was sold unbound in subscription format over a period of 3 years. Most of the articles were written by William Smellie and edited by Macfarquhar, who printed the pages. All copperplates were created by Bell.
The Papyrus Larousse Britannica ("Πάπυρος Larousse Britannica") is a Greek language encyclopedia of 61 volumes, based on the French encyclopedia "Grand Larousse encyclopédique" and the English "Encyclopædia Britannica".
After ending publication of its print edition, which at the end supplied only 1% of the company's revenue, it hoped to transition to a CD or online version. Sales of both of these were disappointing — inability to compete with Wikipedia is mentioned — and insufficient to sustain Britannica's editorial enterprise. Sales of the CD ended with the 2012 "Ultimate Edition". It is no longer being produced or sold by Britannica, and its Web site now focuses on material for children, which was much more profitable than its traditional encyclopedia. Used copies of the CD and the last printed version are available, but the Britannica Encyclopedia as known up to 2012 is not available in 2018 from any vendor.
In January 1995, Project Gutenberg started to publish the ASCII text of 
the "Encyclopædia Britannica", 11th edition (1911), but disagreement about the method halted the work after the first volume. For trademark reasons this has been published as the "Gutenberg Encyclopedia". Project Gutenberg has restarted work on digitising and proofreading this encyclopedia. Project Gutenberg has published volumes in alphabetic order the most recent publication is "Volume 17 Slice 8: Matter–Mecklenburg" published on 7 April 2013. The latest "Britannica" was digitized by its publishers, and sold first as a CD-ROM, and later as an online service.
In the 1980s Microsoft approached Britannica to collaborate on a CD-ROM encyclopedia, but the offer was declined. Senior managers at Britannica were confident in their control of the market and that their healthy profits would continue. At this time complete sets of the encyclopedia were priced between $1,500 and $2,200, and the product was considered part of a luxury brand with an impeccable reputation handed down from generation to generation. The management did not believe that a CD-ROM could adequately compete or supplement their business. Microsoft responded by using content from "Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia" to create what is now known as "Encarta".
In 1957 he was hired by William Benton, publisher of "Britannica", as secretary to the board of editors. In 1964 he became editor of the encyclopedia. He held this position (with an interruption in 1968-69, the year of the "Britannica's" bicentennial) until 1975, the year after the publication of the 15th edition. The 15th edition was a major change in the encyclopedia, and Preece was an important figure in its development. After his resignation as editor, he continued to serve as vice chairman of the board of editors until 1979.
She has nonfiction articles on poetry and politics in "Encyclopædia Britannica", "The First Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Change", "The Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice", and "Encyclopedia of Governance".
As the Britannica is a general encyclopaedia, it does not seek to compete with specialized encyclopaedias such as the Encyclopaedia of Mathematics or the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, which can devote much more space to their chosen topics. In its first years, the Britannica's main competitor was the general encyclopaedia of Ephraim Chambers and, soon thereafter, Rees's Cyclopædia and Coleridge's Encyclopædia Metropolitana. In the 20th century, successful competitors included Collier's Encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia Americana, and the World Book Encyclopedia. Nevertheless, from the 9th edition onwards, the Britannica was widely considered to have the greatest authority of any general English language encyclopaedia,[74] especially because of its broad coverage and eminent authors.[3][5] The print version of the Britannica was significantly more expensive than its competitors.[3][5]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. initially owned "Compton's Encyclopedia" from 1961 to 1993, and later reacquired it in 2002. Britannica had sold its Compton's interests to the Tribune Company in 1993, and for a time "Compton's Encyclopedia" was a product of The Learning Company, which purchased Brøderbund in 1998. In March 2002 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. "acquired an exclusive license to publish and distribute "Compton's Encyclopedia" in print and CD-ROM from Broderbund LLC and Success Publishing Group".
Britannica's 1989 "Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia" was the first "multimedia" CD-ROM encyclopedia. It won the 1991 Software Publishers Association Excellence in Software Award for Best Education Program.
The New York Public Library Desk Reference, in its fourth edition as of 2014, is a one volume general reference work. According to the OCLC (2005 report) it is one of the most widely held general reference works by contributing libraries, ranked after multi-volume works The World Book Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Americana and Collier's Encyclopedia, but slightly ahead of the New Encyclopædia Britannica.
Kister in 1994 gave a qualitative and quantitative comparison of "Collier's Encyclopedia" with two comparable encyclopaedias, "Encyclopædia Britannica" and the "Encyclopedia Americana". For the "quantitative" analysis, ten articles were selected at random (circumcision, Charles Drew, Galileo, Philip Glass, heart disease, IQ, panda bear, sexual harassment, Shroud of Turin and Uzbekistan) and letter grades (A–D, F) were awarded in four categories: coverage, accuracy, clarity, and recency. In all four categories and for all three encyclopaedias, the four average grades fell between B− and B+, chiefly because not one encyclopaedia had an article on sexual harassment in 1994. In the accuracy category, "Collier's" received one "D" and seven "A"s. "Encyclopedia Americana" received eight "A"s, and the "Britannica" received one "D" and eight "A"s; thus, "Collier's" received an average score of 92% for accuracy to "Americana'"s 95% and "Britannica"’s 92%. In the timeliness category, "Collier's" averaged an 85% to "Americana" 90% and "Britannica"’ 86%. After a more thorough "qualitative" comparison of all three encyclopedias, Kister recommended "Collier's Encyclopedia" primarily on the strength of its writing, presentation and navigation.
The Encyclopædia Britannica has been compared with other print encyclopaedias, both qualitatively and quantitatively.[2][3][5] A well-known comparison is that of Kenneth Kister, who gave a qualitative and quantitative comparison of the Britannica with two comparable encyclopaedias, Collier's Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia Americana.[3] For the quantitative analysis, ten articles were selected at random—circumcision, Charles Drew, Galileo, Philip Glass, heart disease, IQ, panda bear, sexual harassment, Shroud of Turin and Uzbekistan—and letter grades of A–D or F were awarded in four categories: coverage, accuracy, clarity, and recency. In all four categories and for all three encyclopaedias, the four average grades fell between B− and B+, chiefly because none of the encyclopaedias had an article on sexual harassment in 1994. In the accuracy category, the Britannica received one "D" and seven "A"s, Encyclopedia Americana received eight "A"s, and Collier's received one "D" and seven "A"s; thus, Britannica received an average score of 92% for accuracy to Americana's 95% and Collier's 92%. In the timeliness category, Britannica averaged an 86% to Americana's 90% and Collier's 85%.
McHenry returned to Britannica in 1982 as editor of "Compton's Yearbook", which was an annual supplement to "Compton's Encyclopedia". McHenry later joined the editorial staff of the "Encyclopædia Britannica", initially as director of Britannica yearbooks, later progressing to become managing editor of the encyclopedia itself in 1986, general editor in 1990, and editor-in-chief in 1992.
The Britannica was the idea of Colin Macfarquhar, a bookseller and printer, and Andrew Bell, an engraver, both of Edinburgh. They conceived of the Britannica as a conservative reaction to the French Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot (published 1751–1766), which was widely viewed as heretical. The Encyclopédie had begun as a French translation of the popular English encyclopedia, Cyclopaedia published by Ephraim Chambers in 1728. Although later editions of Chambers' Cyclopaedia were still popular, and despite the commercial failure of other English encyclopedias, Macfarquhar and Bell were inspired by the intellectual ferment of the Scottish Enlightenment and thought the time ripe for a new encyclopedia "compiled upon a new plan".
The first American encyclopedia, "Dobson's Encyclopædia", was based almost entirely on the 3rd edition of the "Britannica" and was published at nearly the same time (1788–1798), together with an analogous supplement (1803), by Scottish printer Thomas Dobson. Dobson, an Edinburgh native and master printer who learned his craft in that city while the first two editions were being produced there, relocated to America in 1783. The first United States copyright law was passed on 30 May 1790—although anticipated by Section 8 of Article I of the United States Constitution (ratified 4 March 1789)—but did not protect foreign publications such as the "Britannica". Unlicensed copying of the "Britannica" in America became a problem again in the 9th edition (1889).
Powell was a vice president at Sears Roebuck in 1932, when the publisher of the "Britannica", Benjamin J. Cox, resigned. Powell quickly analyzed the factors affecting the profitability of the "Britannica" and hit upon the continuous revision policy in 1933. New "Britannica"-branded products such as the 12-volume children's encyclopedia, "Britannica Junior", appeared only a year later.
Britannica Malayalam Encyclopedia (also known as "Malayalam Britannica" and "Malayalam Encyclopedia") is a reference work in the Malayalam language. Its content is in large part a translation of the "Britannica Concise Encyclopædia".
The 1911 edition is no longer restricted by copyright, and it is therefore available in several more modern forms. While it may once have been a reliable description of the consensus of its time, many modern readers find fault with the "Encyclopedia" for several major errors, ethnocentric remarks, and other issues:The eleventh edition of "Encyclopædia Britannica" has become a commonly quoted source, both because of the reputation of the "Britannica" and because it is now in the public domain and has been made available on the Internet. It has been used as a source by many modern projects, including Wikipedia and the "Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia".
In the end, the journal found just eight serious errors, such as general misunderstandings of vital concepts: four from each site. It also discovered many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 in Wikipedia and 123 in Britannica, an average of 3.86 mistakes per article for Wikipedia and 2.92 for Britannica.[89][91] Although Britannica was revealed as the more accurate encyclopedia, with fewer errors, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. in its detailed 20-page rebuttal called Nature's study flawed and misleading[92] and called for a "prompt" retraction. It noted that two of the articles in the study were taken from a Britannica yearbook and not the encyclopaedia, and another two were from Compton's Encyclopedia (called the Britannica Student Encyclopedia on the company's website). The rebuttal went on to mention that some of the articles presented to reviewers were combinations of several articles, and that other articles were merely excerpts but were penalized for factual omissions. The company also noted that several of what Nature called errors were minor spelling variations, and that others were matters of interpretation. Nature defended its story and declined to retract, stating that, as it was comparing Wikipedia with the web version of Britannica, it used whatever relevant material was available on Britannica's website.[93]
Compton's Encyclopedia and Fact-Index is a home and school encyclopedia first published in 1922 as Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia. The word "Pictured" was removed from the title with the 1968 edition. The encyclopedia is now advertised as "Compton's by Britannica".
The editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, the world standard in reference since 1768, present the Britannica Global Edition. Developed specifically to provide comprehensive and global coverage of the world around us, this unique product contains thousands of timely, relevant, and essential articles drawn from the Encyclopædia Britannica itself, as well as from the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, the Britannica Encyclopedia of World Religions, and Compton's by Britannica. Written by international experts and scholars, the articles in this collection reflect the standards that have been the hallmark of the leading English-language encyclopedia for over 240 years.
Encyclopædia Britannica Films Great Books of the Western World List of encyclopedias by branch of knowledge List of encyclopedias by date List of encyclopedias by language §English List of online encyclopedias
McHenry played a key role in the launch in 1994 of the "Encyclopædia Britannica" in two electronic forms; a CD-ROM version, "Britannica CD", and an Internet version, "Britannica Online", which was the first Internet-based encyclopedia.
There have been and are several abridged Britannica encyclopaedias. The single-volume Britannica Concise Encyclopædia has 28,000 short articles condensing the larger 32-volume Britannica;[22] there are authorized translations in languages such as Chinese[23] and Vietnamese.[24][25] Compton's by Britannica, first published in 2007, incorporating the former Compton's Encyclopedia, is aimed at 10- to 17-year-olds and consists of 26 volumes and 11,000 pages.[26]
McHenry believes that Britannica failed to exploit its early advantages in the market for electronic encyclopedias. Britannica had, for example, published the first multimedia encyclopedia ("Compton's MultiMedia Encyclopedia") as early as 1989, but did not launch "Britannica CD" until 1994, one year after Microsoft launched their "Encarta" encyclopedia. McHenry believes these failures were due to a reluctance amongst senior management to fully embrace new technology, caused largely by the overriding influence of the sales staff and management. The sales personnel earned commissions from door-to-door selling of the print encyclopedias, which McHenry believes led to decisions about the distribution and pricing of the electronic products, being driven by the desires of the sales personnel, rather than market conditions and customer expectations.