The 6th Edition of the Columbia Encyclopedia

Reader HC sent in a tip to the 6th Edition to the Columbia Encyclopedia at http://www.bartleby.com/65/ . If you're used to the full-spectrum multimedia parade of Britannica.com, this encyclopedia is a bit of a shock. There's no splashy front page, no full color photographs --nothing but several links written in the language of encyclopedia spines, like this:

M, letter of the alphabet to Malay Peninsula
Malaysia to Markiewicz, C. G., Countess
Markova, Dame Alicia to Media
median to Michener, James Albert

You get the idea. Decide what you want and click on the appropriate link. Say I want to search for cellist Yo-Yo Ma. I click on the first link in the list above. I'm treated to a list of topics, including:

machine tool
machine translation
Machir
Mach number

I go a little further up the list, pick out the link that says Yo-Yo Ma, and click on it. I get an entry with basic biographical information.

I could not find any entries that had pictures, and if you want to find something at all esoteric you're going to have to use the search engine included on the site. But if you're looking for really basic information, this a great way to do it without having to wait for lots of slow-loading graphics or browsing through subject indexes.

Posted to Reference-Encyclopedias