Encyclopedism

overview about the historical development of Wikipedia

alt=French philosophers sitting around a table|thumb|'''' by Jean Huber, 1772, depicts several of the Encyclopédistes, including Condorcet, d'Alembert, Diderot, and [[Voltaire.]]

thumb|Drawers of the Mundaneum's Universal Bibliographical System bibliographic index cards The Mundaneum was an institution which aimed to gather together all the world's knowledge and classify it according to a system known as the Universal Decimal Classification. It was developed at the turn of the 20th century by Belgian lawyers Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine. The Mundaneum has been identified as a milestone in the history of data collection and management, and, albeit more tenuously, as a precursor to the Internet.

thumb|Natural History, written by Pliny the Elder in the first century, was the first book to be called an encyclopedia. It was highly regarded in the Middle Ages. This profusely illustrated manuscript was produced in the 13th century. Encyclopedism is an outlook that aims to include a wide range of knowledge in a single work. The term covers both encyclopedias themselves and related genres in which comprehensiveness is a notable feature. The word encyclopedia is a Latinization of the Greek enkýklios paideía, which means all-around education. The encyclopedia is "one of the few generalizing in

collection of essays by H. G. Wells

Encyclopaedistics or encyclopaedics as a discipline, is the academic scholarship of encyclopedias as sources of encyclopedic knowledge and cultural objects as well; in this sense, this discipline is also known as "encyclopaedia studies" and can be termed as "theoretical encyclopaediography" by analogy with theoretical lexicography. Encyclopaedistics as a practical activity (profession or business) also called "encyclopaedic practice" or "encyclopedism" is the process of assembling encyclopaedias available to the public for sale or for free (encyclopaedia publishing or practical encyclopediogra

series of monographs published from 1938 to 1969

literary concept