Editorial

Citation

Chalcraft, T. (2007), "Editorial", Reference Reviews, Vol. 21 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/rr.2007.09921haa.001

Editorial

This issue of Reference Reviews has a mildly Russian flavour. Purely by coincidence, the Area Studies section contains reviews of two encyclopedias pertaining to the country. The first, Encyclopedia of Contemporary Russian Culture (RR 2007/404), is the latest volume in the Routledge Contemporary Cultures series, previous volumes of which have been covered in these columns (e.g. RR 2006/116 and RR 2004/51). Dealing mainly with the years since the death of Stalin, but focussing on the period from Gorbachev to the present, it is a welcome volume that will provide a valuable insight into the internal dynamics that drive a country still little understood in the West. The second encyclopedia to be subject to scrutiny is Practical Dictionary of Siberia and the North (RR 2007/407). A translation of a title first published in Russian, this is both an unusual and welcome book providing encyclopedic-like entries for not only Siberia and the Russian Arctic, but Northern polar regions generally. A work of considerable depth and scholarship produced to the highest standards, it deserves to be better known and a place in any reference collection serving Russian or Arctic studies.

When the review copy of Practical Dictionary of Siberia and the North arrived, I was immediately reminded, by its general appearance and character, of that other massive Russian encyclopedia translated into English, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Once a prominent feature in many larger reference libraries but now often relegated to the stacks, if retained at all, this was a 31-volume translation by Macmillan of the third edition of Bol’shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya published between 1969 and 1983. The final effort of a partly propagandistic Soviet tradition of encyclopedia making, this ranks, despite ideological bias, with Britannica, Brockhaus, et al. in the international league table of major encyclopedias. It built on and rehashed, with considerable revision to reflect the evolving political climate, two previous Soviet encyclopedias issued under the same title, the first in 65 volumes between 1926 and 1947 and the second in 50 volumes between 1949 and 1958. The final Great Soviet Encyclopedia contained 100,000 entries and included much information about the then Soviet Union. Although tainted with the party line, it was far more factual than the preceding editions. Many will probably be familiar with the story of the updating regime that followed the death of Beria, Stalin’s chief of the security police. Subscribers to the second edition of the encyclopedia were written to by the editor with a copy of a new article, conveniently on the Bering Strait, and instructed to excise the Beria entry and paste in the replacement!

While considering Russian encyclopedia making, it is worth noting that an online version of Bol’shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya (Russian text) has been made available and can be accessed at www.rubricon.ru. Also easy to overlook in an age when Wikipedia threatens to extinguish all other efforts at encyclopedia making, is that a new multi-volume Russian printed encyclopedia has recently been launched. Bol’shaya Rossiyshaya Enciklopediya or Great Russian Encyclopedia began publication in 2003 and has now reached the seventh of a projected 30 volumes. Released under the auspices of the Russian Academy of Sciences following a decree from President Putin, it appears unashamedly intended as a latter-day Bol’shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya. Eighty thousand entries are planned, and while coverage is to be international, the focus will be on Russia (the subject of the initial volume). Completion of the project is scheduled in ten years. Further details (in Russian) can be found at www.greatbook.ru/index.html

Multi-volume print encyclopedias, albeit with less scope and ambition than the new Great Russian Encyclopedia, again feature in this issue of Reference Reviews. The largest in terms of shelf space is the five-volume second edition of The Gale Encyclopedia of Nursing and Allied Health (RR 2007/390), which appears just four years after first publication in 2002. Also from Gale is World Encyclopedia of Police Forces and Correctional Systems (RR 2007/374), the latest in a flurry of apparently competing sets to give encyclopedic coverage to police and related topics, another notable example being Routledge’s World Police Encyclopedia (RR 2006/364). As noted previously, Greenwood Press is possibly the most active current publisher of subject encyclopedias. Here their contributions are the two-volume Encyclopedia of American Race Riots (RR 2007/364), All Things Chaucer: An Encyclopedia of Chaucer’s World (RR 2007/377), also in two volumes and in the same format as the earlier All Things Austen (RR 2006/80), and Icons of Horror and the Supernatural: An Encyclopedia of Our Worst Nightmares (RR 2007/381), published in the expanding Greenwood Icons series.

Reference sources, of course, do not have to be multi-volume or be labelled “encyclopedia” to be of value or significance. In this issue several more modest titles could be singled out for their usefulness, including the annual Social Trends, probably the number one statistical compendium for UK general libraries (RR 2007/372), the unusual Intoxication in Mythology: A Worldwide Dictionary of Gods, Rites, Intoxicants and Places (RR 2007/382), and the Routledge Companion to the Crusades (RR 2007/402), one of several recent reference titles to appear on this topic, a previous example being Greenwood’s Encyclopedia of the Crusades (RR 2004/284). Finally, there are a number of reviews of electronic sources that should not be missed. Literary Reference Center (RR 2007/383) is EBSCO’s massive literature database aimed at college students, which has many similarities with the equally large scale product from Gale, Literature Resource Center, recently reviewed in these columns (RR 2007/229). LibraryThing (RR 2007/357) is a web site that has been making waves in the library and information community, partly because it opens the door on categorising books, enabling individuals to “share” their library with others in a way many conventional libraries will increasingly want to emulate. Last, but not least, BlackPast.Org: An Online Guide to African American History (RR 2007/397) is one of that small band of websites, largely piloted by one dedicated individual, that attempt to bring order and quality to the internet. Anyone researching in this area would be wise to use this site as a starting point, just as researchers in Russian history should remember the value of the major encyclopedic sets of the past and be aware of the encylopedias that continue to be produced that relate to the country.

Tony ChalcraftEditor, Reference Reviews, and University Librarian, York St John University, York, UK