Online encyclopedia
An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, is a digital encyclopedia accessible through the Internet. Some examples include pre-web services that offered the Academic American Encyclopedia beginning in 1980, Encyclopedia.com since 1998, Encarta from 2000 to 2009, Wikipedia since 2001, and Encyclopædia Britannica since 2016.
Digitization of old content
In January 1995, Project Gutenberg started to publish the ASCII text of the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), but disagreements about the method halted the work after the first volume. For trademark reasons, the text had been published as the Gutenberg Encyclopedia. Since then, Project Gutenberg digitized and proofread the encyclopedia, until the last update in September 2018. Project Gutenberg published volumes in alphabetical order; the most recent publication is Volume 17 Slice 1: "Lord Chamberlain" to "Luqman", published on August 9, 2013. The latest Britannica was digitized by its publishers, and sold first as a CD-ROM, and later as an online service.
In 2001, ASCII text of all 28 volumes was published on Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition by source; a copyright claim was added to the materials included. The website no longer exists.
Other digitization projects have made progress in other titles; one example is Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897) digitized by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
Other websites provide online encyclopedias, some of which are also available on Wikisource. However, some may be more complete than those on Wikisource, or may be from different editions.
Creation of new content
Another early online encyclopedia was called the Global Encyclopedia. In November 1995, James Rettig, Assistant Dean of University Libraries for Reference and Information Services at College of William & Mary, presented an unfavorable review at the 15th Annual Charleston Conference on library acquisitions and related issues. He said of the Global Encyclopedia:
Examples of article entries included Iowa City:
Wikipedia is a free content, multilingual online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteer contributors, known as Wikipedians, through a model of open collaboration. It is the largest and most-read reference work in history. Wikipedia originally developed from another encyclopedia project called Nupedia.