As the Encyclopedia Britannica ceases print publication, it is worth keeping in mind that the concept of the encyclopedia began as a philosophical exercise, with Denis Diderot and the French Encyclopédie. It was from the beginning a social and political project:
"The ecclesiastical party detested the Encyclopédie because it gave a voice to materialistic and atheistic philosophers. The French aristocracy felt threatened by the promotion of concepts such as religious tolerance, freedom of thought, and the value of science and industry, and the assertion that the well-being of the common people ought to be the main purpose of a government. A belief arose that the Encyclopédie was the work of an organized band of conspirators against society, whose dangerous ideas were now being openly published."
But today, "by the twentieth century, encyclopedism’s grand epistemological project had been blackboxed, dumbed down, and commodified for aspirant middlebrow readers, the disruptive ambition of Diderot sold door to door. As a project, the encyclopedia was bracing and grand; as product, EB was just another widget courting obsolescence." The move to digital isn't just the surrender of the paper form. It is also a surrender of hegemony over knowledge, of the preeminence of a single 'Britannic' world view, of a world as empire and people as subjects.
See also: David Weinberger, New Republic, David Andrade, CNN, Audrey Watters, O'Reilly, Doug Peterson, Inside Higher Ed, ACRLog, Education Week, Wired, BBC, and of course, the Britannica Blog (and again, and again).
"The ecclesiastical party detested the Encyclopédie because it gave a voice to materialistic and atheistic philosophers. The French aristocracy felt threatened by the promotion of concepts such as religious tolerance, freedom of thought, and the value of science and industry, and the assertion that the well-being of the common people ought to be the main purpose of a government. A belief arose that the Encyclopédie was the work of an organized band of conspirators against society, whose dangerous ideas were now being openly published."
But today, "by the twentieth century, encyclopedism’s grand epistemological project had been blackboxed, dumbed down, and commodified for aspirant middlebrow readers, the disruptive ambition of Diderot sold door to door. As a project, the encyclopedia was bracing and grand; as product, EB was just another widget courting obsolescence." The move to digital isn't just the surrender of the paper form. It is also a surrender of hegemony over knowledge, of the preeminence of a single 'Britannic' world view, of a world as empire and people as subjects.
See also: David Weinberger, New Republic, David Andrade, CNN, Audrey Watters, O'Reilly, Doug Peterson, Inside Higher Ed, ACRLog, Education Week, Wired, BBC, and of course, the Britannica Blog (and again, and again).
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