Digital Citizens' Encyclopedia

It may or may not be a non-event as these things go, but October will be the last month you can access Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia online.

The writing has been on the wall for a while, and the David that slew the Goliath (and now a Goliath in its own right) is Wikipedia, the Digital Citizens' Encyclopedia, written and edited by thousands of digital volunteers.

The Internet rating service Hitwise reported that in January of 2009 Wikipedia got 97 percent of all US visits to online encyclopedias, while Microsoft Encarta got 1.27%. These numbers speak for themselves.

As a result, Microsoft pulled the plug on all store sales of its Encarta Encyclopedia as of June, and all affiliated sites will be wound down by the end of October, except for those in Japan, which will stay up until the end of the year.

There really was no way that a small (by comparison) editorial staff could keep up with thousands of Wikipedia volunteers, and as a result, the Encarta was sometimes embarrassingly out of date, while any Wikipedia entry could receive hourly updates.

Now, I have had the full Encarta loaded on my PC for the past several years. To be honest, however, this has not been for the encyclopedia itself, which while ample (it was based on the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia) did not meet my research requirements, but for its dictionary, which is the best electronic dictionary around (and believe me, I have looked).

My hope now is that the Encarta Dictionary is not buried alongside the Encyclopedia, for it deserves a much better fate.

A good home for the Encarta Dictionary would be as an integral part of Office 2010--Microsoft, please take note.

The one thing the Encarta Encyclopedia had going for it was the graphics and its very beautiful presentation. As part of the Encarta Encyclopedia launch, Microsoft bought Corbis, and with that had access to an amazing library of images. This is where the Encarta shone. But when it comes to the need for good, up-to-date information, slick presentation will always take a back seat to pertinence and accuracy, and Wikipedia does that job quite admirably.