OUR IMPERFECT ENCYCLOPEDIAS

...A good example is the article on Ulysses Grant, which has just been revised by adding a fresh section describing his Civil War career...

...Today an encyclopedia can fill an important need by serving as a bridge between the advanced countries of the West and the underdeveloped nations of Asia and Africa which are struggling to enter the Twentieth Century...

...But now this appeal has been superseded by a new, more persuasive line aimed at the parents of young children...

...The marketing of encyclopedias is one of the last strongholds of direct selling...

...Its editors claim that every article in the set is considered for revision at least once every five years, yet the 1960 edition does not mention the Lascaux Cave Paintings which were discovered in 1940, and there is nothing of substance on radioactive fallout and strontium-90, which have been matters of grave international concern for the past six years...

...The Britannica has gone even further in its hypnotic appeal to anxious parents...

...Editors often have difficulty in securing suitable "authorities" as contributors...

...Indeed, in the entire Encyclopaedia, only four sentences are devoted to the Senator from Wisconsin who exerted such a profound influence on American intellectual life during the 1950's...

...These educational demands, I suggest, call for the creation of an ambitious new encyclopedia—one that will embody the advances of Twentieth Century learning, not only in the fields of science and technology, but also in anthropology, sociology, economics, and political science...

...The publication and distribution of encyclopedias constitute a large and nourishing business...

...A good example is a full page advertisement in the New York Times December 14, 1959: "IN the rapid march of progress, The Book of Knowledge has solved beyond question of doubt the modern problem of making learning fascinating to growing minds...

...In 1959, Crowell-Collier earned a profit before taxes of approximately $5 million on sales of $32 million...

...ness beyond the reach of criticism, and the success of an encyclopedia depends largely on the skill and ingenuity of its salesmen, rather than its quality...

...If any nation offers her assistance on equal terms, however, it will find in Spain a loyal ally...

...These advertisements appear under the name of Dr...

...Sometimes encyclopedia publishers seem unduly concerned with publicity rather than scholarship, in much the same way that many college alumni stress the prowess of their alma mater on the football field rather than the classroom...

...When Powell first discovered that EB salesmen were using this devious approach, he was appalled and ordered a thorough reform of the sales staff to eliminate this unethical practice...

...An encyclopedia can assume an important role in the process of education, because it encompasses the entire circle of learning within the confines of a single set of books that can be readily transported to distant parts of the world where library facilities are meager and institutions of higher learning severely limited...

...However, an interesting aspect of the encyclopedia business is that although five companies enjoy large sales, one work, as far as the general public is concerned, dwarfs all its competitors: the Encyclopaedia Britannica...

...The G.&C...

...The fact that the Britannica is not intended for and cannot be used by children, because of its scholarly and highly technical content, is irrelevant as far as advertising managers are concerned...

...He is not listed in Who's Who in America, or Who's Who in American Education, or in any of the other standard biographical reference works...

...it carefully avoids any unpleasant topics such as recession, unemployment, monopolies, and cartels...

...But today publishers are often guided not by the requirements of scholarship but by the findings of market research as they consciously strive to produce reference works that will appeal to an ever-larger number of consumers...

...The commercial spirit is incapable of providing an incentive for scaling the heights of scholarship...

...The Britannica, however, is an exception: it makes a special point of the fact that its contributors are paid only two cents a word...

...Cease and Desist Order...

...Without effective criticism of existing encyclopedias, the public is unlikely to receive sound value for its money, and publishers will be tempted to concentrate their efforts on sales promotion rather than editorial improvement...

...The 1960 edition contains an expanded entry on Oliver Elsworth, third Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court...

...An advertisement in the Sunday book section of the New York Times September 11, 1960, urges parents to give their children a copy of Roget's International Thesaurus because "this book will get them better marks...

...Parents are now eager to grasp at any aid that will assist their children in acquiring the advanced education which seems essential for their future social and financial success...

...In the past, encyclopedias have played a significant role in the intellectual history of their time...

...On September 27, at the beginning of the school year, parents were asked in the New York Times: "HOW can you express the inexpressible love you feel for your child...

...The distribution of encyclopedias is such a large and centralized business compared with other aspects of publishing that the financial resources of companies in the field are much greater than those of even the largest hardcover publishers...

...Once upon a time, appeals were directed primarily to adults, who were told that ownership of the Britannica would make them socially stimulating and intellectually respected...

...During the past decade, there has been an enormous increase in Britannica sales—from |12 million in 1952 to $55 million in 1959—and as a result of this increased sales volume, more money than ever before is being spent on editorial revision...

...The 1960 edition of Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia contains an elaborate series of transparent acetate pictures showing successive layers of human anatomy...

...The advertising copy states that this unabridged dictionary "is the world's greatest 'information center'—equivalent in printed material to an eighteen volume encyclopedia . . . containing so much encyclopedic matter that it has become famous as the 'great question answerer.' It covers the entire range of man's knowledge of this eventful era...

...Thus World Book Encyclopedia proudly announces that its 1960 edition cost $2,800,000 to prepare but makes no effort to break this figure down into its component parts...

...This apparent reluctance to deal with the astonishing career of Senator McCarthy and the ominous subject of McCarthy ism is rather surprising, since William Benton, who owns a two-thirds interest in the Britannica, waged a vigorous and courageous campaign during his three years in the Senate against McCarthy and his reckless methods...

...On February 1, parents were asked: "Which is more important to your child . . . the size of his home or the size of his mind...

...These nations look to America and its allies not only for financial aid but also for the educational and technical assistance that will enable them to become modern industrialized societies...

...In the past, publishers were content to leave editors with a free hand once they had allocated the necessary funds...

...Clearly such a large-scale project would require support from the Federal government or private foundations, since it could hardly be sustained on its commercial prospects...

...On August 23, a deeper note was struck when parents were asked: "Are you giving your children more than you had...

...One of the most striking examples is the advertising for the Merriam-Webster New International Dictionary...

...There is no bibliography attached to the biography, and with the exception of two brief paragraphs dealing with the Presidential elections of 1936, 1940, and 1944, the article is restricted to Roosevelt's first term in office...

...The advertisement then lists the features of the work: * Largest, most complete book of synonyms and antonyms * More than 200,000 words and phrases * Up-to-date with 74,978 new words Thus, almost forty per cent of all the entries are new words...

...Hooper and Jackson were unable to exert any influence on the contents of the set because the Times assumed full responsibility for the preparation of the eleventh edition, and the editor of the Times, Moberly Bell, would not allow the reputation of his newspaper to be compromised by commercial considerations...

...Although the accomplishments of Oliver Elsworth are treated in great detail, there is no article on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, who is at least as important a subject to contemporary readers as is Oliver Elsworth...

...But his background is briefly described by Herman Kogan in the book, The Great EB...

...Perhaps the most striking example of the Britannica's failure to keep up with the times is its twenty-five-year-old biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt...

...This was a natural approach because the Encyclopaedia is a reference work intended for adult readers...

...The section on constitutional law quotes without comment from a statute of 1945: "The Spanish state proclaims that the ruling principle in its actions is respect for the dignity, integrity, and liberty of the human person...

...This is illustrated by the Americana's article on Spain which is written, in part, by Spanish experts...

...Therefore, it is important that such works be periodically examined and criticized to maintain adequate standards of utility and scholarship...

...The article on the Negro in America in the 1960 Americana fails to mention the historic 1954 decision of the Supreme Court outlawing segregation in public schools, although the decision is briefly noted elsewhere in the Encyclopedia...

...The businessmen who publish and sell encyclopedias have recognized this shift toward a child-oriented society and are taking advantage of it...

...Such patriotic sentiments would seem more appropriate for a public rally of the Falange than the sober pages of an American encyclopedia...

...Therefore it is only natural that advertising men should play on the sensitivity of middle class parents who are frightened by the prospect that they may be unwittingly depriving their children of some precious asset required for their future success...

...Consequently, it neglects recent information now available on the Martian atmosphere and sheds no light on the intriguing question of whether life exists on Mars...

...Such exaggeration is a common advertising practice, and copywriters will often go much further to produce an effective sales message...

...and it then notes—"The family is regarded and protected as the natural, fundamental institution of society, and work is exalted and dignified...

...Evidence of this new look in encyclopedia selling can be found in a series of advertisements that appeared in the Sunday book section of the New York Times during 1959...

...The author of this section can hardly speak frankly about conditions existing under Franco's rule since he is dean of the law faculty at the University of Madrid...

...But Merriam-Webster has been forced to abandon this policy because two competing publishers are producing college dictionaries that are continually revised...

...The Britannica enjoys this unique reputation because of an intensive program of advertising and publicity combined with the prestige of the host of celebrated scholars and authors who have contributed editorially to the set...

...Such enterprises can never hope to compete with popular works intended for a large audience...

...Their goal is to fashion an irresistible sales message which will make the EB appear indispensable to any parent who is concerned for the welfare of his children...

...This new article, written by President John F. Kennedy while he was in the United States Senate, occupies half a page in the Britannica...

...and dictionaries...

...The new approach can be clearly traced in the advertising program of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...

...When the great eleventh edition was issued fifty years ago, the work was owned by two shrewd and aggressive Americans, Horace Hooper and Walter Jackson...

...Consequently it can offer the public its somewhat antiquated "question answerer" without any fear of losing sales...

...The mounting stress on higher education as an indispensable asset and the increasing competition for entrance into colleges have made the labor of encyclopedia salesmen so much the easier...

...The truth behind this misleading claim, however, is that the latest copyright date in Roget's International Thesaurus published by Thomas Y. Crowell is 1946...

...As many consumers have learned, this method has been revived...

...Contrastingly meager payments made to editorial contributors follow inevitably from the emphasis placed on salesmanship rather than scholarship...

...Lest parents be at a loss for an answer, they were instructed in the EB catechism: "Probably the most concrete way in which we show a genuine concern for our children is in the concern we have for their education . . . There can be no doubt that a respect for knowledge exists in a home where the Encyclopaedia Britannica is a valued possession...

...There is some difficulty in determining Dr...

...If she stands alone, she will fight to the end with arms adequate or inadequate, many or few, new or old...

...But an examination of these pictures reveals that the figure represented is neither male nor female, but a composite humanoid devoid of sex organs, designed to prevent children who use the set from discovering the anatomical differences between the sexes, thus forestalling any criticism from sexual prudes...

...One might think that this antiquated biography has been retained because F.D.R...

...is still a controversial figure in certain circles, but a much more probable reason is that if the one and three-fourths page article on Franklin Roosevelt were expanded to include the events of his second and third terms, it might be necessary to disturb the "classic" five page article on Theodore Roosevelt, which has been reprinted for the last thirty years...

...The Encyclopaedia's editors insist they have never had difficulty in recruiting contributors even at these low rates...

...The "great statesman" is not identified...

...This technique was described in detail by E. H. Powell, who served for many years as the Britannica's chief executive officer, in an article in the Saturday Evening Post of July 28, 1945...

...Another section dealing with national defense was prepared by a general in the Spanish army who writes: "Spain . . . can boast of the well-earned title as defender of the liberty of Europe—a title she is prepared to revalidate if put to the test...

...However, a close examination reveals that much of this editorial revision consists merely in cutting and patching old entries to bring them "up-to-date...

...Encyclopedias are not the only reference works that indulge in exaggerated claims...

...The importance of isolating the commercial spirit from the objectives of scholarship is clearly demonstrated by the history of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...

...The eleventh edition of the Britannica was one of the jewels of British scholarship that was carried to the outposts of the Empire as one of the symbols of the English way of life...

...The Encyclopedic edited by Diderot and D'Alembert marked the beginning of a new spirit of enlightenment and religious toleration in Eighteenth Century France that was to lead ultimately to the French Revolution...

...In many instances, important developments are neglected by encyclopedias despite the practice of annual revision...

...Give them the help the best students are getting now...

...Apparently even an order of the Federal Trade Commission is not sufficient to halt the use of deceptive sales techniques...

...His astonishing choice is made not in favor of some great storehouse of learning, but for a set of volumes intended for young children...

...It likes to recall that George Bernard Shaw received only $68.50 for his essay on socialism and Albert Einstein $86.50 for his article on space-time...

...The editors report that 7,250,000 word changes have been made in the 1960 edition...

...It is difficult to attack the soundness and authority of an encyclopedia within the limits of a magazine article because of the large size of such reference works and the general belief that their contents are accurate and reliable...

...On November 30, 1960, after a three day jury trial, the publisher of the Encyclopedia Americana was found guilty in the U.S...

...They no longer find it necessary to persuade people that knowledge is an important asset and reference books a valuable possession...

...Presumably "Doc" Bradley's important sales position makes him—in his employers' eyes—an authority on why the Encyclopaedia is an essential aid in educating youngsters...

...Despite the current excitement over satellites, sputniks, and space flight, the article on Mars has remained unchanged for the last thirty years...

...But there is no entry on Rafael Trujillo, who has ruled the Dominican Republic for the last thirty years...

...The Britannica Junior states that there is no conflict between the theories of evolution and religious belief—a comforting observation that ignores not only the Scopes trial but several generations of heated controversy about the origins of man as well...

...Curiously, however, there is a fresh biography of Herbert Hoover, written from a conservative Republican point of view, which is as long as the entry on Franklin Roosevelt...

...Generally encyclopedias like to boast about the vast sums they spend in preparing new editions while remaining reticent about their payments to authors...

...Lavish rewards offered sales personnel are a familiar aspect of the encyclopedia business...

...Thus, an advertisement in the March 19, 1960, Saturday Review states that the index of Collier's Encyclopedia contains 400,000 references, when it actually includes about 330,000...

...Matters are quite different today...

...He has made an Intensive study of American encyclopedia...

...The entries on heredity and genetics in the 1960 Collier's Encyclopedia say nothing about the central role of DNA, the complicated molecule which transmits hereditary information, although this discovery has transformed the science of genetics during the last decade...

...The merchandising of these reference works is a silent busiHARVEY EINBINDER it a contusing phytlcist working on the Atlas missile project for General Elactrlc's electronic department...

...Bradley's credentials...

...The effect of commercial considerations is sometimes obvious in the treatment of sensitive or controversial topics...

...The statesman is reputed to have said: "Had I to choose between a college education for my children and having them grow up daily companions with The Book of Knowledge, I would, without the least hesitation, decide in favor of The Book of Knowledge...

...Copywriters, of course, are not hampered by a necessity for truthful statements or factual accuracy...

...The lapses of the Britannica are particularly striking because of its extraordinary reputation for accuracy and reliability...

...Many people have been captivated by this exciting prospect and have eagerly purchased a set of books they later discovered was antiquated, poorly edited, and difficult to read...

...for a fraction of the price you'd expect to pay...

...They promoted the set with a bold and vigorous advertising campaign that overwhelmed the resistance of consumers...

...For information on his second and third terms, readers are directed to the entry on the United States...

...They frequently employ foreign scholars to write on their native countries...

...The mediocre quality of many contemporary American reference works confirms the truism that the goals of scholarship and the aims of salesmanship are not synonymous...

...Later, when the salesman arrives to discuss the matter, he reveals that there is a small charge (of several hundred dollars), but he assures you the cost is far below what an ordinary consumer pays for the encyclopedia...

...But Powell left the Britannica in 1948...

...Our Imperfect Encyclopedias by HARVEY EINBINDER Almost everyone has been approached at one time or another by a persistent salesman who has promised to deliver, for a few dollars down and a few dollars a month, an encyclopedia containing the knowledge of the present and the wisdom of the past...

...On September 16, 1960, an initial decision of a hearing examiner for the Federal Trade Commission was made public: it found that the Britannica had been falsely advertising the price for a combination offer of books and research services...

...Such a stern question can hardly fail to stimulate the sensitive nerves of parents...

...Their job is to increase sales, and the truth of their copy is secondary...

...Such deceptive advertising is not an isolated occurrence...

...Mer-riam Company can make this claim unchallenged because it has no effective competition in the field of unabridged dictionaries...

...it makes the twelve million dollars spent on quality paperbacks, about which there is so much publicity, seem rather puny and insignificant...

...A reference work dedicated to the pursuit of learning would furnish a striking example of American intellectual enterprise and would supplement our military and economic strength by making a positive contribution to the diffusion of knowledge and the cause of world peace...

...Help them," parents are told, "to write interestingly, vividly, accurately...

...Thus, Crowell-Collier, which publishes Collier's Encyclopedia and the Harvard Classics, owns radio stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Minneapolis, and it has recently acquired control of the Macmillan Company, the fourth largest trade books publisher in the United States...

...With this world-famous treasure of knowledge in your home, your children will soon develop the habit of 'looking it up in the Britannica'—a habit that will help them acquire a standard of life to sustain them throughout life...

...The sales of a single firm, Grolier—which markets the Americana and The Book of Knowledge— currently exceed $70 million, which almost equals the dollar volume of all adult books sold through stores...

...As a result, its name has become almost synonymous with the word "encyclopedia...

...There is no suggestion that Hoover failed to cope with the massive problem of unemployment and the paralysis of the economic system...

...An encyclopedia is a valuable educational tool which is widely used by teachers and students, particularly in elementary and high schools...

...And they were told: "The first step in enlarging the mind is knowledge, and that is why thinking parents put the acquisition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica before any other possession...

...This positive statement that the ownership of a set of books—a particular set of books—is just what every home needs, is reassuring to anxious parents who find their children more interested in television and comic books than in reading and studying...

...The company once followed the same policy with its Collegiate Dictionary, reprinting the text without change for years—with the exception of a brief introductory section on new words...

...Once their anxiety is aroused, they are informed that if they "want to give their children this priceless gift of knowledge—the Encyclopaedia Britannica is an essential possession...

...The advertising message fails to mention, however, that the text of the Merriam-Webster "New" unabridged dictionary was completed in 1934, and that its 2,987 pages, including the preface and introduction, have been reprinted without change ever since that date...

...This difficulty is accentuated in dealing with the Britannica because it is widely accepted as a last court of appeal in settling disputed factual questions...

...Although the Britannica publicly boasts that it has paid contributors at the rate of two cents a word ever since 1929, it neglects to mention that the set cost only $129.50 in 1929, while today its price is $298...

...Thus, when I presented a critical appraisal of its contents in the Winter 1960 issue of the Columbia University Forum, Robert Hutchins, chairman of the Encyclopaedia, complained in the following issue that my criticism was superficial because I singled out only ninety of the Britannica's 42,000 entries...

...Massive projects, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, which took seventy years to complete, would never have been carried through if they depended on their commercial prospects...

...The company is now appealing the examiner's findings to the full Commission because, as a spokesman in Chicago explained, the Encyclopaedia has always had the highest sales standards...

...During 1961 more than $260 million will be spent by the public on encyclopedias—an amount almost as great as the total expenditure for textbooks of all kinds, and much greater than the dollar volume of the nation's 1,500 bookstores...

...yet such a comprehensive new encyclopedia would encompass the ever expanding domain of knowledge and serve as a monument to the persistent and unfettered search for truth that is a distinguishing mark of a free society...

...Gaps also exist in the coverage of international affairs: there are two separate entries on Trujillo, one dealing with a province in the Dominican Republic and the other with a city in the coastal desert of northern Peru...

...However, this is sometimes a hazardous practice, particularly in dealing with dictatorial regimes...

...Since 1946 "Doc" Bradley has been with the Britannica—first as a salesman in the Bronx, and then as a district and finally a division manager in Chicago...

...But editorial control over the work rested firmly in the hands of the London Times, which had been receiving royalties ever since 1898...

...Thus the owners of World Book, which sells more copies than any other encyclopedia, advanced $200,000 to sponsor Sir Edmund Hillary in a highly publicized stunt search for the Abominable Snowman in the Himlayas...

...To attract likely prospects, many techniques have been devised which are peculiar to this business...

...The "small charge" is, of course, exactly what everyone else pays...

...Kogan relates that "Doc" Bradley served as an ordained Presbyterian minister for a decade and then became a top executive of the American Bible Society...

...Sales of reference books rose from $106 million in 1954 to $234 million in 1958...

...A final example is furnished by the article in World Book on the free enterprise system— a eulogy of the profit motive and laissez faire that could have been written by a publicist for the National Association of Manufacturers...

...The remainder of the old article has been retained even though it was written by John Fiske, who died in 1901, and offers an inflated eulogy of a singularly incompetent President which sharply disagrees with the views of modern historians...

...The profit instinct has always been a powerful motive in stimulating the efforts of encyclopedia publishers...

...Furthermore, the cover of the book prominently displays the caption "New Edition," although the work has been published without change for the last fourteen years...

...According to The Great EB, "Many experts and scholars realize the prestige attached to being asked to contribute to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and less than two per cent of those invited have ever declined...

...One of the oldest is a telephone call from a salesman who announces the good news that, because you are such a distinguished leader in your community, you have been selected to receive a set free of charge just for the advertising value of its presence in your home...

...An advertisement in the February, 1961, issue of Harper's, as well as in many other magazines, extols this dictionary by announcing that it "Answers more questions than any other reference work...

...District Court of Maryland on eight counts and was fined $16,000 for violating an F.T.C...

...One curious anomaly of the encyclopedia business is that its products are almost never evaluated or criticized...

...Not content with this ambitious claim, the advertisement goes on to cite "the words of a great statesman whose remarkable career is a testimony to the value of self-reliance learned in childhood...

...Such partial coverage in unavoidable in a short article, and this has forced me to write a full-length book to document more fully the disparity that exists between the EB's reputation and its achievements...

...yet the progress of learning depends on scholarly undertakings...

...The current prosperity of the encyclopedia business is reflected in the financial statements of leading firms in the field...

...The jury found that the publishers had falsely represented that the Encyclopedia Americana was available at a reduced or special price to a specially selected group of prospects—a practice which had been expressly forbidden by the F.T.C...

...J. Chapman Bradley, who one would presume to be a distinguished educator or child psychologist...

...Collegiate dictionaries make a practice of exaggerating the number of vocabulary entries they contain...

...Without effective leadership from learned societies, colleges, and universities, it is unlikely that these projects will be initiated and carried to completion in the future...

...The only concession to this "eventful era" is a brief addenda of new words which occupies forty pages in the front of the work...

...This permits many encyclopedia firms to engage in other ventures...

...Magazines and newspapers devote many pages to the latest novel, biography, or bit of political journalism embalmed in hard covers, but almost nothing is printed about the reference works that represent such a major investment of the book-buying public...