Linda Hall Library
The Linda Hall Library is a endowed American library of science and technology located in Kansas City, sitting "majestically on a 14-acre urban arboretum." It is the "largest independently funded public library of science and technology in North America" and "among the largest science libraries in the world." Established in 1946 through the philanthropy of Linda and Herbert F. Hall, of the Hall-Bartlett Grain Co. the library has achieved global recognition and stature. The library is open to the public with individual researchers, academic institutions and companies from Kansas City and around the world using the library’s extensive research-level collection. Though not affiliated with its neighbor, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, many students and faculty from UMKC and other local colleges and universities utilize the library each day; the library's William N. Deramus III Cosmology Theater shows images of the cosmos from the Hubble Space Telescope and NASA science missions; these images are delivered via ViewSpace to the library with daily updates that provide the library with new content for visitors.
"The Tazza", one of the largest pieces of malachite in North America, stands as the focal point in the center of the main reading room, which features parquet wood floors and bookshelves of oak, large windows that overlook the south lawn. The library's collection numbers over 2 million items, it was established by the purchase of the 62,358 books and other items—assembled by John Adams before he became president—that had belonged to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. It includes academic journals, academic conference proceedings, reference works, publications by the government, technical reports, industrial standards, engineering society conference papers, U. S. patents, monographs. In 1995, the Engineering Societies Library was transferred to Library, an acquisition equal in significance to the Academy collection, greater in terms of the number of volumes received; the ESL collection added depth to both the journal and monograph collections, containing publications of many engineering societies, including the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Society of Civil Engineers, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Institute of Mining and Petroleum Engineers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.
The library's distinguished History of Science Collection contains more than 50,000 volumes, including first editions of many landmarks of science and technology. Some of the oldest books in the collection date to the fifteenth century, the oldest book in the collection being a 1472 printing of Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia. OnlineA number of works can be accessed online, including: Tycho Brahe's 1632 Astronomicall Coniectur Georg Joachim Rheticus's Narratio Prima George Catlin's North American Indian PortfolioNotable HoldingsThe collection includes a number of important scientific works, including: Georg Joachim Rheticus, Narratio Prima. Nicolaus Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. Leonhard Fuchs, De historia stirpium commentarii insignes. Galileo Galilei, Sidereus nuncius. Francis Bacon, Instauratio magna. Isaac Newton, Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica. Georges Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species.
The 14-acre grounds surrounding the library are home to over 338 trees representing some 52 genera and 145 species. The arboretum and gardens are further embellished by beds of viburnum, tree peonies and Missouri native woodland plants. Seven trees on the property have been designated Greater Kansas City Champion Trees and represent the largest specimens of their species in the metropolitan area: Sweet Birch, European Hornbeam, Hardy Rubber Tree, Double Flowered Horsechestnut, Rivers Purple Beech, Yulan Magnolia, Anise Leaf Magnolia; the National Wildlife Federation’s Backyard Wildlife Habitat Program has awarded a certificate of merit to the library for its efforts in preserving the natural habitat of the grounds. Official website Libraries.org Linda Hall entry page Linda Hall Library's Transcontinental Railroad educational site with free, full-text access to 19th century American railroad periodicals Linda Hall Library History of Science Collection, C-SPAN video, BookTV Bus, May 12, 2008 Linda Hall Library: a Gem of Science Knowledge video by KSHB NBC Action News
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It was written by more than 4,000 contributors; the 2010 version of the 15th edition, which spans 32 volumes and 32,640 pages, was the last printed edition. The Britannica is the English-language encyclopaedia/encyclopedia, in print for the longest time: it lasted 244 years, it was first published between 1768 and 1771 as three volumes. The encyclopaedia grew in size: the second edition was 10 volumes, by its fourth edition it had expanded to 20 volumes, its rising stature as a scholarly work helped recruit eminent contributors, the 9th and 11th editions are landmark encyclopaedias for scholarship and literary style. Beginning with the 11th edition and following its acquisition by an American firm, the Britannica shortened and simplified articles to broaden its appeal to the North American market. In 1933, the Britannica became the first encyclopaedia to adopt "continuous revision", in which the encyclopaedia is continually reprinted, with every article updated on a schedule.
In March 2012, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced it would no longer publish printed editions, would focus instead on Encyclopædia Britannica Online. The 15th edition had a three-part structure: a 12-volume Micropædia of short articles, a 17-volume Macropædia of long articles, a single Propædia volume to give a hierarchical outline of knowledge; the Micropædia was meant as a guide to the Macropædia. Over 70 years, the size of the Britannica has remained steady, with about 40 million words on half a million topics. Though published in the United States since 1901, the Britannica has for the most part maintained British English spelling. Since 1985, the Britannica has had four parts: the Micropædia, the Macropædia, the Propædia, a two-volume index; the Britannica's articles are found in the Micro- and Macropædia, which encompass 12 and 17 volumes each volume having one thousand pages. The 2007 Macropædia has 699 in-depth articles, ranging in length from 2 to 310 pages and having references and named contributors.
In contrast, the 2007 Micropædia has 65,000 articles, the vast majority of which contain fewer than 750 words, no references, no named contributors. The Micropædia articles are intended for quick fact-checking and to help in finding more thorough information in the Macropædia; the Macropædia articles are meant both as authoritative, well-written articles on their subjects and as storehouses of information not covered elsewhere. The longest article is on the United States, resulted from the merger of the articles on the individual states; the 2013 edition of Britannica contained forty thousand articles. Information can be found in the Britannica by following the cross-references in the Micropædia and Macropædia. Hence, readers are recommended to consult instead the alphabetical index or the Propædia, which organizes the Britannica's contents by topic; the core of the Propædia is its "Outline of Knowledge", which aims to provide a logical framework for all human knowledge. Accordingly, the Outline is consulted by the Britannica's editors to decide which articles should be included in the Micro- and Macropædia.
The Outline is intended to be a study guide, to put subjects in their proper perspective, to suggest a series of Britannica articles for the student wishing to learn a topic in depth. However, libraries have found that it is scarcely used, reviewers have recommended that it be dropped from the encyclopaedia; the Propædia has color transparencies of human anatomy and several appendices listing the staff members and contributors to all three parts of the Britannica. Taken together, the Micropædia and Macropædia comprise 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 prefers British spelling over American. However, there are exceptions such as defense rather than defence. Common alternative spellings are provided with cross-references such as "Color: see Colour." Since 1936, the articles of the Britannica have been revised on a regular schedule, with at least 10% of them considered for revision each year.
According to one Britannica website, 46% of its articles were revised over the past three years. The alphabetization of articles in the Micropædia and Macropædia 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. Articles with identical names are ordered first by persons by places by things. Rulers with identical names are organized first alphabetically by country and by chronology. Places that share names are
Argonautica
The Argonautica is a Greek epic poem written by Apollonius Rhodius in the 3rd century BC. The only surviving Hellenistic epic, the Argonautica tells the myth of the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts to retrieve the Golden Fleece from remote Colchis, their heroic adventures and Jason's relationship with the dangerous Colchian princess/sorceress Medea were well known to Hellenistic audiences, which enabled Apollonius to go beyond a simple narrative, giving it a scholarly emphasis suitable to the times. It was the age of the great Library of Alexandria, his epic incorporates his researches in geography, comparative religion, Homeric literature. However, his main contribution to the epic tradition lies in his development of the love between hero and heroine – he seems to have been the first narrative poet to study "the pathology of love", his Argonautica had a profound impact on Latin poetry: it was translated by Varro Atacinus and imitated by Valerius Flaccus. The Argonautica was an adventure for the poet, one of the major scholars of the Alexandrian period – it was a bold experiment in re-writing Homeric epic in a way that would meet the demanding tastes of his contemporaries.
According to some accounts, a hostile reception led to his exile to Rhodes. The literary fashion was for small, meticulous poems, featuring displays of erudition and paradoxography, as represented by the work of Callimachus. In adapting the epic genre to this audience, Apollonius went a long way towards inventing the romance novel, including narrative techniques like the "interior monologue", whereby the author identifies with a character's thoughts and feelings; the re-evaluation of his work in recent times has led to a mass of innovative studies jostling each other for attention, so that Argonautica has become a daunting adventure for many modern scholars too: Scholars that row against this current feel as if they are sailing through the Clashing Rocks. If the attempt to pass through the clashing mountain of books succeeds, there is no hope of a pause and scholars find themselves in the grip of a debilitating Ancient Greek: ἀμηχανία. Since scholarship is a key feature of this unique story, here is a preview of some of the main issues in the poet's treatment of the Argonaut myth, as addressed by recent scholarship.
A "Callimachian epic"? Callimachus set the standards for Hellenistic aesthetics in poetry and, according to ancient sources, he engaged in a bitter literary feud with Apollonius. Modern scholars dismiss these sources as unreliable and point to similarities in the poetry of the two men. Callimachus, for example, composed a book of verses dealing with aitia, the mythical origins of contemporary phenomena. According to one survey, there are eighty aitia in Argonautica, yet Argonautica is intended to be fundamentally Homeric and therefore seems at odds with the fashionable poetics of Callimachus. The epic hero? Addressing the issue of heroism in Argonautica, the German classicist H. Fränkel once noted some unheroic characteristics of Jason and his crew. In particular, their frequent moods of despair and depression, summed up in the word helplessness. By contrast, the bullying Argonaut Idas seemed to Fränkel an ugly example of the archaic warrior, it looks as if Apollonius meant to underscore the obsolescence of traditional heroism in the Hellenistic period.
These arguments have caused much discussion among scholars about the treatment and nature of heroism in Argonautica. Characters without character? Another fruitful discussion gained impetus from an article by D. A. Van Krevelen, who dismissed all the characters, apart from Medea, as flimsy extras without any interesting qualities. An "episodic epic?" In addition to aitia, Argonautica incorporates descriptions of wonders and marvels, digressions associated with Hellenistic "science", including geography, ethnography and comparative religion. So the question arises: is the poem a unified narrative, or is the epic plot a coathanger for erudite and colourful episodes? There is some dispute about the date when the poem was published, it could have been during the reign of a generation later. According to Jackie Murray, the poem was published at the time of Ptolemy III Euergetes. Apollonius' Argonautica was based on multiple ancient sources, including Pindar; the story of the expedition seems to have been known to the author of the Odyssey, who states, that the ship Argo was the only one that passed between the whirling rocks.
Jason is mentioned several times in the Iliad, but not as the leader of the Argonauts. Hesiod relates the story of Jason saying that he fetched Medeia at the command of his uncle Pelias, that she bore him a son, educated by Cheiron; the first trace of the common tradition that Jason was sent to fetch the golden fleece from Aea, the city of Aeetes, in the eastern boundaries of the earth, occurs in Mimnermus, a contemporary of Solon.
Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes of Cyrene was a Greek mathematician, poet and music theorist. He was a man of becoming the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria, he invented the discipline of geography, including the terminology used today. He is best known for being the first person to calculate the circumference of the Earth, which he did by comparing angles of the mid-day Sun at two places a known North-South distance apart, his calculation was remarkably accurate. He was the first to calculate the tilt of the Earth's axis, again with remarkable accuracy. Additionally, he may have calculated the distance from the Earth to the Sun and invented the leap day, he created the first map of the world, incorporating parallels and meridians based on the available geographic knowledge of his era. Eratosthenes was the founder of scientific chronology. Eratosthenes dated The Sack of Troy to 1183 BC. In number theory, he introduced the sieve of Eratosthenes, an efficient method of identifying prime numbers, he was a figure of influence in many fields.
According to an entry in the Suda, his critics scorned him, calling him Beta because he always came in second in all his endeavors. Nonetheless, his devotees nicknamed him Pentathlos after the Olympians who were well rounded competitors, for he had proven himself to be knowledgeable in every area of learning. Eratosthenes yearned to understand the complexities of the entire world; the son of Aglaos, Eratosthenes was born in 276 BC in Cyrene. Now part of modern-day Libya, Cyrene had been founded by Greeks centuries earlier and became the capital of Pentapolis, a country of five cities: Cyrene, Berenice and Apollonia. Alexander the Great conquered Cyrene in 332 BC, following his death in 323 BC, its rule was given to one of his generals, Ptolemy I Soter, the founder of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. Under Ptolemaic rule the economy prospered, based on the export of horses and silphium, a plant used for rich seasoning and medicine. Cyrene became a place of cultivation. Like any young Greek, Eratosthenes would have studied in the local gymnasium, where he would have learned physical skills and social discourse as well as reading, arithmetic and music.
Eratosthenes went to Athens to further his studies. There he was taught Stoicism by its founder, Zeno of Citium, in philosophical lectures on living a virtuous life, he studied under Aristo of Chios, who led a more cynical school of philosophy. He studied under the head of the Platonic Academy, Arcesilaus of Pitane, his interest in Plato led him to write his first work at a scholarly level, inquiring into the mathematical foundation of Plato's philosophies. Eratosthenes investigated the art of poetry under Callimachus, he was a imaginative poet. He wrote poems: one in hexameters called Hermes, illustrating the god's life history, he wrote Chronographies, a text that scientifically depicted dates of importance, beginning with the Trojan War. This work was esteemed for its accuracy. George Syncellus was able to preserve from Chronographies a list of 38 kings of the Egyptian Thebes. Eratosthenes wrote Olympic Victors, a chronology of the winners of the Olympic Games, it is not known when he wrote his works.
These works and his great poetic abilities led the pharaoh Ptolemy III Euergetes to seek to place him as a librarian at the Library of Alexandria in the year 245 BC. Eratosthenes thirty years old, accepted Ptolemy's invitation and traveled to Alexandria, where he lived for the rest of his life. Within about five years he became Chief Librarian, a position that the poet Apollonius Rhodius had held; as head of the library Eratosthenes tutored the children of Ptolemy, including Ptolemy IV Philopator who became the fourth Ptolemaic pharaoh. He expanded the library's holdings: in Alexandria all books had to be surrendered for duplication, it was said that these were copied so that it was impossible to tell if the library had returned the original or the copy. He sought to maintain the reputation of the Library of Alexandria against competition from the Library of Pergamum. Eratosthenes created a whole section devoted to the examination of Homer, acquired original works of great tragic dramas of Aeschylus and Euripides.
Eratosthenes made several important contributions to mathematics and science, was a friend of Archimedes. Around 255 BC, he invented the armillary sphere. In On the Circular Motions of the Celestial Bodies, Cleomedes credited him with having calculated the Earth's circumference around 240 BC, using knowledge of the angle of elevation of the Sun at noon on the summer solstice in Alexandria and on Elephantine Island near Syene. Eratosthenes believed there was good and bad in every nation and criticized Aristotle for arguing that humanity was divided into Greeks and barbarians, that the Greeks should keep themselves racially pure; as he aged he contracted ophthalmia, becoming blind around 195 BC. Losing the ability to read and to observe nature plagued and depressed him, leading him to voluntarily starve himself to death, he died in 194 BC at 82 in Alexandria. Eratosthenes calculated the Earth's circumference without leaving Alexandria, he knew that at local noon on the summer solstice in Syene (modern Asw
Almagest
The Almagest is a 2nd-century Greek-language mathematical and astronomical treatise on the apparent motions of the stars and planetary paths, written by Claudius Ptolemy. One of the most influential scientific texts of all time, its geocentric model was accepted for more than 1200 years from its origin in Hellenistic Alexandria, in the medieval Byzantine and Islamic worlds, in Western Europe through the Middle Ages and early Renaissance until Copernicus; the Almagest is the critical source of information on ancient Greek astronomy. It has been valuable to students of mathematics because it documents the ancient Greek mathematician Hipparchus's work, lost. Hipparchus wrote about trigonometry, but because his works appear to have been lost, mathematicians use Ptolemy's book as their source for Hipparchus's work and ancient Greek trigonometry in general. Ptolemy set up a public inscription at Canopus, Egypt, in 147 or 148. N. T. Hamilton found that the version of Ptolemy's models set out in the Canopic Inscription was earlier than the version in the Almagest.
Hence it cannot have been completed before about 150, a quarter-century after Ptolemy began observing. The work was titled "Μαθηματικὴ Σύνταξις" in Ancient Greek, called Syntaxis Mathematica or Almagestum in Latin; the treatise was titled Hē Megalē Syntaxis, the superlative form of this lies behind the Arabic name al-majisṭī, from which the English name Almagest derives. The Arabic name is important due to the popularity of a Latin re-translation made in the 12th century from an Arabic translation, which would endure until original Greek copies resurfaced in the 15th century; the Syntaxis Mathematica consists of called books. As with many medieval manuscripts that were handcopied or printed in the early years of printing, there were considerable differences between various editions of the same text, as the process of transcription was personal. An example illustrating how the Syntaxis was organized is given below, it is a Latin edition printed in 1515 at Venice by Petrus Lichtenstein. Book I contains an outline of Aristotle's cosmology: on the spherical form of the heavens, with the spherical Earth lying motionless as the center, with the fixed stars and the various planets revolving around the Earth.
Follows an explanation of chords with table of chords. Book II covers problems associated with the daily motion attributed to the heavens, namely risings and settings of celestial objects, the length of daylight, the determination of latitude, the points at which the Sun is vertical, the shadows of the gnomon at the equinoxes and solstices, other observations that change with the spectator's position. There is a study of the angles made by the ecliptic with the vertical, with tables. Book III covers the length of the year, the motion of the Sun. Ptolemy explains Hipparchus' discovery of the precession of the equinoxes and begins explaining the theory of epicycles. Books IV and V cover the motion of the Moon, lunar parallax, the motion of the lunar apogee, the sizes and distances of the Sun and Moon relative to the Earth. Book VI covers solar and lunar eclipses. Books VII and VIII cover the motions of the fixed stars, including precession of the equinoxes, they contain a star catalogue of 1022 stars, described by their positions in the constellations, together with ecliptic longitude and latitude.
Ptolemy states that the longitudes are for the beginning of the reign of Antoninus Pius, whereas the latitudes do not change with time. The constellations north of the zodiac and the northern zodiac constellations are in the table at the end of Book VII, while the rest are in the table at the beginning of Book VIII; the brightest stars were marked first magnitude, while the faintest visible to the naked eye were sixth magnitude. Each numerical magnitude was considered twice the brightness of the following one, a logarithmic scale; this system is believed to have originated with Hipparchus. The stellar positions too are despite Ptolemy's claim to the contrary. Ptolemy identified 48 constellations: The 12 of the zodiac, 21 to the north of the zodiac, 15 to the south. Book IX addresses general issues associated with creating models for the five naked eye planets, the motion of Mercury. Book X covers the motions of Mars. Book XI covers the motions of Saturn. Book XII covers stations and retrograde motion, which occurs when planets appear to pause briefly reverse their motion against the background of the zodiac.
Ptolemy understood these terms to apply to Venus as well as the outer planets. Book XIII covers motion in latitude; the cosmology of the Syntaxis includes five main points, each of, the subject of a chapter in Book I. What follows is a close paraphrase of Ptolemy's own words from Toomer's translation; the celestial realm is spherical, moves as a sphere. The Earth is a sphere; the Earth is at the center of the cosmos. The Earth, in relation to the distance of the fixed stars, has no appreciable size and must be treated as a mathematical point; the Earth does not move. As mentioned, Ptolemy includes a star catalog containing 1022 stars, he says that he "observed as many stars as it was possible to percei
Beneventan script
The beneventan script was a medieval script which originated in the Duchy of Benevento in southern Italy. It was called Langobarda, Longobardisca, or sometimes Gothica, it is associated with Italy south of Rome, but it was used in Beneventan-influenced centres across the Adriatic Sea in Dalmatia. The script was used from the mid-8th century until the 13th century, although there are examples from as late as the 16th century. There were two major centres of Beneventan usage: the monastery on Monte Cassino, Bari; the Bari type developed in the 10th century from the Monte Cassino type. In general the script is angular. According to Lowe, the perfected form of the script was used in the 11th century, while Desiderius was abbot of Monte Cassino, declining thereafter. Beneventan features many ligatures and "connecting strokes" – the letters of a word could be joined together by a single line, with forms unrecognizable to a modern eye. Ligatures may be obligatory as: ⟨ei⟩, ⟨gi⟩, ⟨li⟩, ⟨ri⟩ and ⟨ti⟩, they may be optional: frequent as ⟨et⟩, ⟨ae⟩ and ⟨st⟩.
Ligatures involving the letter ⟨t⟩ resemble late New Latin Cursive as in the Merovingian and Visigothic, exception made for peculiar ⟨st⟩ ligature where ⟨s⟩ is connected to ⟨t⟩ on top influencing on the German pre-caroline script and all the script from this derived until nowadays. In ligatures ⟨t⟩ can take many forms depending on the letter joined to it. Ligatures with the letters ⟨e⟩ and ⟨r⟩ are common. In early forms of Beneventan, the letter ⟨a⟩ has an open top, similar to the letter ⟨u⟩. In the Bari type, the letter ⟨c⟩ has a "broken" form, resembling the Beneventan form of the letter ⟨e⟩. However, ⟨e⟩ itself has a long middle arm, distinguishing it from ⟨c⟩; the letter ⟨d⟩ can have a vertical or left-slanting ascender, the letter ⟨g⟩ resembles the uncial form, the letter ⟨i⟩ is tall and resembles ⟨l⟩. The script has a unique way to signify abbreviations both by omission and contraction – like most other Latin scripts, missing letters can be signified by a macron over the previous letter, although Beneventan adds a dot to the macron.
There is a symbol resembling the digit ⟨3⟩, or a sideways ⟨m⟩, when the letter ⟨m⟩ has been omitted. In other scripts there is little or no punctuation, but standard punctuation forms were developed for the Beneventan script, including the basis for the modern question mark. Beneventan shares some features with Visigothic and Merovingian script due to the common late Roman matrix. Francesco Bianchi/Antonio Magi Spinetti: BMB. Bibliografia dei manoscritti in scrittura Beneventana, Rom 1993 ff. Giulio Battelli: Beneventana, scritture e miniatura, in: Enciclopedia Cattolica II, Città del Vaticano 1949, p. 1617-1618. Virginia Brown: A second new list of beneventan manuscripts, in: Studi medievali 40, p. 239-289 Guglielmo Cavallo: Rotoli di Exultet dell'Italia meridionale, Bari 1973. Guglielmo Cavallo: Struttura e articolazione della minuscola beneventana tra i secoli X – XII, in: Studi medievali 3. Ser. 11, p. 343-368. Alfonso Gallo: Contributo allo studio delle scritture meridionali nell'alto medio evo, in: Bulletino dell'Istituto Storico Italiano 47, S. 333-350.
Elias Avery Lowe: The Beneventan Script. A history of the south Italian Minuscule, Oxford 1914. Elias Avery Lowe: Scriptura beneventana. A history of the South Italian minuscule, 2 vol. Oxford 1929. Elias Avery Lowe: A new list of beneventan manuscripts. In: Collectanea Vaticana in honorem A. M. card. Albareda, Città del Vaticano1962, p. 211-244 = ders. Palaographical Papers II, Oxford 1972, p. 417-479. Elias Avery Loew: The Beneventan Script, 2 Bde. 2. Aufl. Rom 1978 - 1980. Francis Newton: Fifty Years of Beneventan Studies, in: AfD 50, p. 327-346. Viktor Novak: Scriptura Beneventana, Zagreb 1920'Manual of Latin Palaeography'. Bibliography of beneventan manuscripts
Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition
The Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition is a 29-volume reference work, an edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. It was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication; some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time. This edition of the encyclopedia, containing 40,000 entries, is now in the public domain, many of its articles have been used as a basis for articles in Wikipedia. However, the outdated nature of some of its content makes its use as a source for modern scholarship problematic; some articles have special value and interest to modern scholars as cultural artifacts of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The 1911 eleventh edition was assembled with the management of American publisher Horace Everett Hooper. Hugh Chisholm, who had edited the previous edition, was appointed editor in chief, with Walter Alison Phillips as his principal assistant editor. Hooper bought the rights to the 25-volume 9th edition and persuaded the British newspaper The Times to issue its reprint, with eleven additional volumes as the tenth edition, published in 1902.
Hooper's association with The Times ceased in 1909, he negotiated with the Cambridge University Press to publish the 29-volume eleventh edition. Though it is perceived as a quintessentially British work, the eleventh edition had substantial American influences, not only in the increased amount of American and Canadian content, but in the efforts made to make it more popular. American marketing methods assisted sales; some 14% of the contributors were from North America, a New York office was established to coordinate their work. The initials of the encyclopedia's contributors appear at the end of selected articles or at the end of a section in the case of longer articles, such as that on China, a key is given in each volume to these initials; some articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time, such as Edmund Gosse, J. B. Bury, Algernon Charles Swinburne, John Muir, Peter Kropotkin, T. H. Huxley, James Hopwood Jeans and William Michael Rossetti. Among the lesser-known contributors were some who would become distinguished, such as Ernest Rutherford and Bertrand Russell.
Many articles were carried over from some with minimal updating. Some of the book-length articles were divided into smaller parts for easier reference, yet others much abridged; the best-known authors contributed only a single article or part of an article. Most of the work was done by British Museum scholars and other scholars; the 1911 edition was the first edition of the encyclopædia to include more than just a handful of female contributors, with 34 women contributing articles to the edition. The eleventh edition introduced a number of changes of the format of the Britannica, it was the first to be published complete, instead of the previous method of volumes being released as they were ready. The print type was subject to continual updating until publication, it was the first edition of Britannica to be issued with a comprehensive index volume in, added a categorical index, where like topics were listed. It was the first not to include long treatise-length articles. Though the overall length of the work was about the same as that of its predecessor, the number of articles had increased from 17,000 to 40,000.
It was the first edition of Britannica to include biographies of living people. Sixteen maps of the famous 9th edition of Stielers Handatlas were translated to English, converted to Imperial units, printed in Gotha, Germany by Justus Perthes and became part this edition. Editions only included Perthes' great maps as low quality reproductions. According to Coleman and Simmons, the content of the encyclopedia was distributed as follows: Hooper sold the rights to Sears Roebuck of Chicago in 1920, completing the Britannica's transition to becoming a American publication. In 1922, an additional three volumes, were published, covering the events of the intervening years, including World War I. These, together with a reprint of the eleventh edition, formed the twelfth edition of the work. A similar thirteenth edition, consisting of three volumes plus a reprint of the twelfth edition, was published in 1926, so the twelfth and thirteenth editions were related to the eleventh edition and shared much of the same content.
However, it became apparent that a more thorough update of the work was required. The fourteenth edition, published in 1929, was revised, with much text eliminated or abridged to make room for new topics; the eleventh edition was the basis of every version of the Encyclopædia Britannica until the new fifteenth edition was published in 1974, using modern information presentation. The eleventh edition's articles are still of value and interest to modern readers and scholars as a cultural artifact: the British Empire was at its maximum, imperialism was unchallenged, much of the world was still ruled by monarchs, the tragedy of the modern world wars was still in the future, they are an invaluable resource for topics omitted from modern encyclopedias for biography and the history of science and technology. As a literary text, the encyclopedia has value as an example of early 20th-century prose. For example, it employs literary devices, such as pathetic fallacy, which are not as common in modern reference texts.
In 1917, using the pseudonym of S. S. Van Dine, the US art critic and author Willard Huntington Wright published Misinforming a Nation, a 200+
