Has people power now reached the encyclopaedia? “In addition, we added some 1,500 new entries, many directly responding to readers’ enquiries.” For a profession which prides itself on being attuned to user needs, we must applaud such recognition of what users of an encyclopaedia actually want rather than what its compilers think they want or need. It makes commercial sense too. For reasons well aired in previous reviews (by myself and others) we think the Cambridge Encyclopaedia a very good thing. With an apparently regular (not to say frequent for a major hardback printed book) revision schedule, its qualities are both maintained and enhanced. The previous edition was a very major revision, while this one continues the process; it does not have the same thorough re‐examination of every article which preceded the previous edition, but it does offer some 20,000 words of new text to include newsworthy topics such as BSE, the Yugoslavian Civil War and others, as well as newly relevant biographies: Tony Blair is added; John Major stays in, and one wonders whether William Hague will ever earn an entry. There is also extended coverage of film personalities (another bow to popular demand?). Local government reorganization in the UK means another list of UK local government bodies and areas suitably updated. Apparently, national flags also needed revision, not just for the various new states which have come into existence, but also for alterations to existing flags.
Otherwise the structure, arrangement and general character of this work are as in previous editions. It relies on a large number (more than 26,000 in the A‐Z section) of direct entries with a considerable amount of cross‐reference (more than 85,000 such references). There are then more than 10,000 entries in a separate ready reference section, again structured as before and brought as up‐to‐date as the circumstances of printed production allow (which means to 1996 rather than 1997 at least for association football, suggesting a cut‐off date as spring 1997). But here, again, the range and detail are to be commended: not everybody wants to know, or needs to know, the latest croquet, draughts, orienteering or powerboat champions, but such questions are the stuff of much reference enquiry work. We also find here selected at random by your reviewer, an explanation of deaf finger spelling, forms of address and international direct dialling codes, as well as other topics of ready reference. All that is in addition to a comprehensive coverage of national information for the whole world on such topics as rulers, holidays and more usual standard data.
The contents of the entries remain concise and relevant with some explanation, interpretation or comment as appropriate to each. The entry for Paisley now includes the university and a list of industries for the town which, sadly, are of more historical relevance than for current information. The illustrations also remain; I have had some minor quibbles about these in the past, but generally they are clear enough, and, most important, relevant to their purpose within the overall scheme and cost constraints of the encyclopaedia. The text is preceded by a 24‐page colour world atlas with coloured illustrations of flags on the end papers. The work begins with a clear, thorough preface on the background to and aims of the encyclopaedia, as well as a valuable guide on how to use it.
I have said before that in many ways this is a model encyclopaedia. It has clear aims and objectives (in our terms; a clear market in the publisher’s terms) and its progress to this latest edition suggests that its sales reflect the worth of the product. It proves yet again that the printed book has much to offer in information terms if it is carefully planned, well designed, well written and constructed and all carried through logically. All those virtues are very much in evidence in what must now be established as one of the most significant reference works of recent times. Having said all that, however, it seems an obvious candidate for electronic publishing also and it is interesting to note that while Cambridge University Press will continue to publish the printed volumes, database rights and development have now passed to a separate company for maintenance and other projects. We await those with great interest, but in the meantime find it difficult to over‐estimate the value of this work whether in the home or in the library. An extraordinary amount of information is clearly presented and highly accessible, at a comparatively cheap price, in what must almost count as a reference library in its own right.
