College and Research Libraries


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cussed in addition to the mechanical details. 
These points are touched upon briefly in 

the Proceedings. There is room for another 
conference to digest the data and opinions 
brought into the open at Airlie. The Pro-
ceedings constitute a most valuable source 
of data and opinion relating to library auto-
mation.-Alan M. Rees, Western Reserve 
University. 

Encyclopaedias: Their History Throughout 
the Ages. A Bibliographical Guide with 
Extensive Historical Notes to the Gener-
al Encyclopaedias Issued Throughout 
the World from 350 B.C. to the Present 
Day. By Robert Collison. New York & 
London, Hafner Publishing Company, 
1964. 319p. $7.50. 

Mr. Collison, librarian of the BBC refer-
ence library, has compiled several volumes 
for which reference librarians and students 
have been grateful. His most recent contri-
bution puts us further in his debt, for he has 
brought together a quantity of information 
in this book on encyclopedias. It is more 
ambitious in plan and in scope than his 
books on bibliographies and dictionaries, 
since it is in the form of an historical narra-
tive and aims at comprehensiveness. 

The narrative begins with the Greek 
sources of the western encyclopedic tradi-
tion and ends with references to new ency-
clopedias. It includes whole chapters on 
Diderot's Encyclopedie, on the Encyclo-
paedia Britannica, and on the various publi-
cations of the firm of Brockhaus. A chro-
nology of significant dates and an introduc-
tion discussing some of the problems in-
volved in the production of encyclopedias 
precedes the main text, and following it are 
a general bibliography, a list of encyclo-
pedias not mentioned in the text, and a re-
print of Coleridge's "Preliminary Treatise 
on Method" from the Encyclopaedia Metro-
politana. 

The chronological arrangement adopted 
by the author presents difficulties which he 
has not entirely overcome. It is not possible, 
for example, easily to trace the development 
of encylopedia making in any one country 
or culture because the only grouping by 
language is an incomplete list of lesser 
works in the appendix. Mr. Collison's ac-
counts of the Arabic and Chinese encyclo-
pedic traditions are practically worthless 
since he only provides brief descriptions of 

Book Reviews I 339 

individual titles dispersed throughout the 
text. Index entries for languages or coun-
tries would have partially solved this prob-
lem, but the index to the book is limited to 
personal names and titles . It is incomplete 
even in these. 

The author's intention as to scope is not 
clear. The title indicates that the book is 
confined to general encyclopedias but there 
is a section on modem encyclopedias in spe-
cial subject fields at th e end of the last 
chapter. Coverage of Asian works is very 
uneven; for example, no Japanese titles are 
mentioned. Numerous works of minor im-
portance in western langauges are included, 
but others of equal claims are missing. Few 
important titles were overlooked, but surely 
the East German version of "Meyer" is 
worth mentioning. 

The treatment of individual works is 
mostly limited to externals of bibliographic 
detail, publishing history, and arrangement. 
The amount of space devoted to individual 
titles is not always in proportion to their im-
portance-twenty lines is hardly adequate, 
for example, for the Enciclopedia Italiana. 
Judgments expressed are the conventional 
ones, although most read ers would not 
agree that the contents of the eleventh edi-
tion of the Encyclopaedia Britannica "were 
kept within the mental range of the average 
man." 

References are provided in the text and 
at the end of chapters, as well as in the 
general bibliography. Th ey are not as com-
plete or as precise as on e could wish; a list-
ing of Templeman's and Wright's Bibli-
ographies of Studies in Victorian Literature 
is not very helpful, and it is unfortunate 
that the only recent substantial discussion 
of the principles of encyclopedia making 
(in the September 1962 issue of the Amer-
ican Behavioral Scientist) should have been 
overlooked. 

In spite of its imperfections, Mr. Colli-
son's book, as the first attempt at a compre-
hensive account of the d evelopment of the 
general encyclopedia, will undoubtely be 
useful. By indirectly exposing the shallow-
ness of our present knowledge, it can per-
haps serve another purpose in encouraging 
reference librarians and students to under-
take more specialized studies in order to 
enrich our understanding of these important 
reference works.-Marjorie Karlson, Wash-
ington University. · • •