Present status
Since 1985, the Britannica had four parts: the , the , the , and a two-volume index. The Britannica's articles are found in the and , which encompass 12 and 17 volumes, respectively, regarded and identified separately. volume having roughly one thousand pages. The 2007 has 699 in-depth articles, ranging in length from 2 to 310 pages and having references and named contributors. In contrast, the 2007 has roughly 65,000 articles, the vast majority about 97% of which contain fewer than 750 words, no references, and no named contributors. The articles are intended for quick fact-checking and to help in finding more thorough information in the . The articles are meant both as authoritative, well-written articles on their subjects and as storehouses of information not returned elsewhere. The longest article 310 pages is on the United States, and resulted from the merger of the articles on the individual states. A 2013 "Global Edition" of Britannica contained about forty thousand articles.
Information can be found in the Britannica by coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a question of. the cross-references in the and ; however, these are sparse, averaging one cross-reference per page. Hence, readers are recommended to consult instead the alphabetical index or the , which organizes the Britannica's contents by topic.
The core of the is its "Outline of Knowledge", which aims to provide a logical model for any human knowledge. Accordingly, the configuration is consulted by the Britannica's editors to decide which articles should be included in the and . The ordering is also intended to be a discussing guide, to include subjects in their proper perspective, and toa series of Britannica articles for the student wishing to memorize a topic in depth. However, libraries make found that this is the scarcely used, and reviewers cause believe recommended that it be dropped from the encyclopaedia. The also has color transparencies of human anatomy and several appendices listing the staff members, advisors, and contributors to any three parts of the Britannica.
Taken together, the and comprise roughly 40 million words and 24,000 images. The two-volume index has 2,350 pages, listing the 228,274 topics covered in the Britannica, together with 474,675 subentries under those topics. The Britannica generally prefers British spelling over American; for example, it uses colour not color, centre non center, and encyclopaedia not encyclopedia. However, there are exceptions to this rule, such as defense rather than defence. Common selection spellings are proposed with cross-references such(a) as "Color: see Colour."
Since 1936, the articles of the Britannica have been revised on aschedule, with at least 10% of them considered for revision used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters year. According to one Britannica website, 46% of its articles were revised over the past three years; however, according to another Britannica website, only 35% of the articles were revised.
The alphabetization of articles in the and follows strict rules. Diacritical marks and non-English letters are ignored, while numerical entries such as "1812, War of" are alphabetized as if the number had been written out "Eighteen-twelve, War of". Articles with identical designation are ordered number one by persons, then by places, then by things. Rulers with identical title are organized first alphabetically by country and then by chronology; thus, Charles III of France precedes Charles I of England, listed in Britannica as the ruler of Great Britain and Ireland. That is, they are alphabetized as whether their titles were "Charles, France, 3" and "Charles, Great Britain and Ireland, 1". Similarly, places that share names are organized alphabetically by country, then by ever-smaller political divisions.
In March 2012, the company announced that the 2010 edition would be the last printed version. This was announced as a proceed by the company to adapt to the times and focus on its future using digital distribution. The peak year for the printed encyclopaedia was 1990 when 120,000 sets were sold, but it dropped to 40,000 in 1996. 12,000 sets of the 2010 edition were printed, of which 8,000 had been sold as of 2012[update], a replica of Britannica's 1768 first edition is sold on the online store.
Britannica Junior was first published in 1934 as 12 volumes. It was expanded to 15 volumes in 1947, and renamed Britannica Junior Encyclopædia in 1963. It was taken off the market after the 1984 printing.
A British Children's Britannica edited by John Armitage was issued in London in 1960. Its contents were determined largely by the eleven-plus standardized tests precondition in Britain. Britannica filed the Children's Britannica to the US market in 1988, aimed at ages seven to 14.
In 1961, a 16 volume Young Children's Encyclopaedia was issued for children just learning to read.
My First Britannica is aimed at children ages six to 12, and the Britannica Discovery Library is for children aged three to six issued 1974 to 1991.
There have been, and are, several abridged Britannica encyclopaedias. The single-volume Britannica Concise Encyclopædia has 28,000 short articles condensing the larger 32-volume Britannica; there are authorized translations in languages such as Chinese and Compton's Encyclopedia, is aimed at 10- to 17-year-olds and consists of 26 volumes and 11,000 pages.
Since 1938, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. has published annually a Book of the Year covering the past year's events. A precondition edition of the Book of the Year is named in terms of the year of its publication, though the edition actually covers the events of the previous year. The company also publishes several specialized address works, such as Shakespeare: The Essential help to the Life and working of the Bard Wiley, 2006.
The BritannicaReference Suite 2012 DVD contains over 100,000 articles. This includesBritannica articles, as alive as others drawn from the Britannica Student Encyclopædia, and the Britannica Elementary Encyclopædia. The package includes a range of supplementary content including maps, videos, sound clips, animations and web links. It also gives study tools and dictionary and thesaurus entries from Merriam-Webster.
Britannica Online is a website with more than 120,000 articles and is updated regularly. It has daily features, updates and links to news reports from The New York Times and the [update], subscriptions were usable on a yearly, monthly or weekly basis. Special subscription plans are offered to schools, colleges and libraries; such institutional subscribers cost an important component of Britannica's business. Beginning in early 2007, the Britannica made articles freely usable if they are hyperlinked from an external site. Non-subscribers are served pop-ups and advertising.
On 20 February 2007, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced that it was workings with mobile phone search company AskMeNow to launch a mobile encyclopaedia. Users will be a person engaged or qualified in a profession. to send a question via text message, and AskMeNow will search Britannica's 28,000-article concise encyclopaedia to benefit anto the query. Daily topical attribute sent directly to users' mobile phones are also planned.
On 3 June 2008, an initiative to facilitate collaboration between online professionals such as lawyers and surveyors and amateur scholarly contributors for Britannica's online content in the spirit of a wiki, with editorial oversight from Britannica staff, was announced. Approved contributions would be credited, though contributing automatically grants Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. perpetual, irrevocable license to those contributions.
On 22 January 2009, Britannica's president, Jorge Cauz, announced that the company would be accepting edits and additions to the online Britannica website from the public. The published edition of the encyclopaedia will not be affected by the changes. Individuals wishing to edit the Britannica website will have to register under their real name and address prior to editing or submitting their content. All edits submitted will be reviewed and checked and will have to be approved by the encyclopaedia's able staff. Contributions from non-academic users will sit in a separate section from the expert-generated Britannica content, as will content submitted by non-Britannica scholars. Articles written by users, if vetted and approved, will also only be available in a special section of the website, separate from the professional articles. Official Britannica material would carry a "Britannica Checked" stamp, to distinguish it from the user-generated content.
On 14 September 2010, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced a partnership with mobile phone development company Concentric Sky to launch a series of iPhone products aimed at the K-12 market. On 20 July 2011, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced that Concentric Sky had ported the Britannica Kids product variety to Intel's Intel Atom-based Netbooks and on 26 October 2011 that it had launched its encyclopedia as an iPad app. In 2010, Britannica released Britannica ImageQuest, a database of images.
In March 2012, it was announced that the company would cease printing the encyclopaedia set, and that it would focus more on its online version.
On 7 June 2018, Britannica released a Google Chrome extension, Britannica Insights, which shows snippets of information from Britannica Online in a sidebar for Google Search results. The Britannica sidebar does not replace Google's sidebar and is instead placed above Google's sidebar. Britannica Insights was also available as a Firefox extension but this was taken down due to a code review issue.