What is an encyclopedia: value, types

Human knowledge is the most valuable work of our civilization. From century to century, information was accumulated and transmitted on the most convenient media. Giant libraries, archives, databases, all this - a storehouse of information from various fields of science. Separate, generalized theme arrays of knowledge form encyclopedias. Our article will be about them.

We're going to talk about what an encyclopedia is, what it can be and what it can tell us. If this topic is interesting, then we invite you to continue with us.

Encyclopedia: concept

Let's start with the concept of what an encyclopedia is. This book or electronic publication, scientific or popular science, containing information about this or that direction of scientific research of practical activity. The term derives from the confluence of two Greek words: enkyklios and paideia, which is interpreted as "learning in terms of knowledge".

Principles for the construction of encyclopedias

Information in encyclopedias is placed in a certain way. Depending on this principle, the types of publications are also distinguished.

So, the basic principles of placing encyclopedic articles are alphabetic, thematic, alphabetical-thematic. With regard to ease of use, for a reader who is not prepared in a particular issue, it will be more relevant to use encyclopedias with the alphabetical placement of articles. For specific scientific encyclopedias, the thematic alphabetical order of information placement is more convenient.

The most interesting varieties of encyclopedias are thematic. Depending on the aspects covered in them, there are publications:

• Universal - the collection of information on all realities of life, relating mainly to the country that issued the encyclopedia;
• Regional - contain facts about a region of the country, continent or our planet in general;
• Branch - give the information, exclusively concerning this or that branch of human activity;
• Narrow-branch (problematic) - cover a specific issue of one of the branches of human activity, which constitutes a separate problem (scientific or practical);
• Biographical, dedicated to the life and work of the famous luminaries of science, art, politics and other social spheres;
• Other encyclopedias, mostly those that represent an array of information for a particular readership (a vivid example is the children's encyclopedias, giving a variety of data that interest children of a certain age).

The intermediate result of our research will be the knowledge of what an encyclopedia is, and the main views of the latter.

We distinguish: encyclopedias and reference books-encyclopedias, dictionaries-encyclopedias

There is another criterion by which these book editions should be distinguished. He touches on the methods of presenting information. In accordance with this encyclopedic literature is divided into encyclopedias, reference books-encyclopedias and dictionaries-encyclopedias.

Dictionaries-encyclopedias differ in that in them the information is presented concisely, often in only one interpretation of the term.

Encyclopedias give more information: apart from the interpretation of a word or phenomenon, we can learn about it from its history, its connections with other concepts. It is the multidimensionality and vastness of the exposition that makes them the most interesting for perusal by the type. Such a publication is the famous universal "Great Soviet Encyclopedia".

Another type that we have not considered is a reference book. Encyclopedia of this type contains material, arranged by thematic groups for convenient use.

Results

Thus, we considered what an encyclopedia is. This is an array of information from a particular industry or general information located on a specific principle. There are many types of encyclopedias, divided into different features.

Encyclopedias contain a huge amount of useful and interesting knowledge. It is often necessary to touch the development of human development through these publications!