Evaluation of encyclopaedias, Humanities

Assignment Help:

Evaluation of Encyclopaedias

A good and useful collection of general and special encyclopaedias form the backbone for the reference work in any library. The strong collection of general and special encyclopaedias in English and other languages ensure efficient reference service in a library. In this section, we will discuss various check points which can help in the selection and assessing the value of encyclopaedias before the acquisition for the library.

It is a very expensive venture to produce an authoritative set of encyclopaedia as it involves overall planning, engaging subject experts to write articles, competent indexers to provide layout artists, exhaustive index, and photographers for providing apt illustrations, accurate printing, efficient editorial and proof reading, adequate advertising through reviews in journals catalogues and announcement leaflets to booksellers, distributors, librarians etc. All these cannot be done cheaply. Reputed publishers recognise this fact by their experience in the field of publishing encyclopaedias and incur considerable expenditure to produce an authoritative work so as to earn the profit in turn. The prices of the authoritative sets of encyclopaedia are quite high, as the publishers have to meet with the expenses of high cost of production. Therefore the librarians have to make careful selection of the encyclopaedia and judicious expenditure depending upon the avail-ability of funds and space. Again, the librarian has also to consider the needs of the reader. They must be used intelligently to obtain the maximum benefit. It is not possible to make a perfect and complete encyclopaedia, as it is difficult to include all the existing information: Hence, the librarian should assess their value and find out their merits and demerits before acquiring them.

The main checkpoints for evaluating and analysing encyclopaedias are :

a) Authority

b) Scope and purpose

c) Treatment

d) Arrangement

e) Format

f) Revision

g) Limitation

h) Special features


Related Discussions:- Evaluation of encyclopaedias

Exchange format - structure, Structure   Records in automated systems m...

Structure   Records in automated systems may be of fixed length or variable length. Fixed length records in a file must each contain the same fields and -any given field must a

Uses of general encyclopaedia, Uses of General Encyclopaedia General E...

Uses of General Encyclopaedia General Encyclopaedia is usually referred to get background information on any subject. They are used to find out information about unknown sub

History of the american, 1. Trace the development of the Industrial Revolut...

1. Trace the development of the Industrial Revolution in early 19 th century America. How did life for the American workers change during the Industrial Revolution? Were workers b

Analytical branch of bibliography, Analytical An analytical bibliograp...

Analytical An analytical bibliography deals with the study and detailed description of documents. It examines the physical characteristics of documents, the history of the doc

Authority - evaluation of encyclopaedia, Authority The authoritiveness...

Authority The authoritiveness of an encyclopaedia can be judged by the reputation of the editor, consult-ants, contributors who are responsible for producing it. The reputatio

What are the internal and external factors of ncc, Perform a SWOT analysis ...

Perform a SWOT analysis on NCC (NCC- Collage). Provide lists for NCC's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Use pages 190-192 as a guide, Perform a situation (SW

Geographical variations in the incidence of homicide, The case of high rate...

The case of high rates of killing in inner-city ghettoes - especially black ghettoes - in the 1960s to 1990s is familiar. Loïc Waquant (2004) has attrib-uted the ‘decivilising p

Humanity, iven the medieval works of art we have studied, evaluate how reli...

iven the medieval works of art we have studied, evaluate how religion influenced the aesthetics of the period. Use at least two examples of art we have studied in this course as th

Write Your Message!

Captcha
Free Assignment Quote

Assured A++ Grade

Get guaranteed satisfaction & time on delivery in every assignment order you paid with us! We ensure premium quality solution document along with free turntin report!

All rights reserved! Copyrights ©2019-2020 ExpertsMind IT Educational Pvt Ltd