Talk:Columbia Encyclopedia

Religious Bias
I am the managing editor for reference and electronic publishing at Columbia University Press. I removed reference in this article to "religious bias" in the encyclopedia, as only the McCabe essay was cited. McCabe, a Catholic priest turned atheist, was a somewhat virulent anti-Catholic and objected to what he viewed as "pro-Catholic" bias in the Columbia Encyclopedia as well as the Brittanica. However, his objection wasn't so much to the information contained in those works as it was to standard scholarship on the Catholic Church. Further, the removed sentence also said that "some" see such religious bias in current editions, but without citing any reference or source. The removed sentences read: " On the negative side, this encyclopedia has sometimes been accused of having a religious or ethnic bias. While this view has been mainly prevalent with regard to past editions (see below), some people still perceive a certain bias in the present." While I have no objection to criticism of the Columbia Encyclopedia, and indeed welcome it, misleading references to 50-year-old complaints about editions long out of print and further unsourced criticism would seem out of place in a reference work. I look forward to futher discussion on this. Ssterns 19:46, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Important notes
I think this article is missing a couple key pieces of information.


 * The proper name, at least last I saw one, is "Columbia Concise Encyclopedia".


 * AFAIK, each article in the CCE is written by an expert in the subject, mostly Profs at Columbia University. The articles are short, hence "concise", but very good.  Extremely high quality.

- JohnPritchard 12:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The Columbia Concise Encyclopedia is actually a separate edition from the main Columbia Encyclopedia and contains slightly different articles (as well as fewer articles). There is also an electronic edition of the concise CE but available on a proprietary platform by one vendor. Many articles are written by experts, but we haven't relied "mostly" on Columbia professors for several editions. As we currently update on an on-going basis, with periodic more thorough revisions, updates are guided by our editorial board, but are largely written/edited by our staff or selected freelancers. All changes are reviewed by the encyclopedia editor. Ssterns 21:31, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

How does this relate to what was oublished as the "Columbia-Viking Desk Encyclopedia"? It was first published in 1953; I also have a paperback edition published in 1963. It truly changed my life. As a kid I used to carry it around with me and read it at any opportunity, It had an early form of cross-referencing that foretold the power of hypertext, in which any entry in it that had its own article was printed in bold, so that if you wanted to follow a thread you could flip over to it. After a good many years of this, I had a mind fully stuffed with odd links, that eventually allowed me to win $5000 on Win Ben Stein's Money. Hooray for linked stuff!DrEvel00 19:39, 13 September 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrEvel00 (talk • contribs)

Bartleby and Columbia Encyclopedia
Due to financial and usage considerations the reference works licensed from Columbia University Press and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt have been removed from Bartleby.com as of June 2009.

The editions have not been properly reviewed...
from google scholar point of view--222.64.26.227 (talk) 23:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

--222.64.26.227 (talk) 23:12, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=The+Columbia+Encyclopedia+Fifth+Edition&btnG=Search

--222.64.26.227 (talk) 23:14, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=ISBN+039562438X&btnG=Search

--222.64.26.227 (talk) 23:15, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=ISBN+9780395624388&btnG=Search

I leave others to check the rest of the editions --222.64.26.227 (talk) 23:17, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

--222.64.26.227 (talk) 23:20, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ISBN+039562438X&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

--222.64.26.227 (talk) 23:49, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=The+Columbia+Encyclopedia+Fifth&btnG=Search


 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=The+Columbia+Encyclopedia+Fifth&btnG=Search


 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=The+Columbia+Encyclopedia+Third&btnG=Search


 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=The+Columbia+Encyclopedia&btnG=Search

--222.64.26.227 (talk) 23:52, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=The+Columbia+Encyclopedia+Second&btnG=Search

---

more on this --222.64.26.227 (talk) 23:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=bn%3A039562438X&qt=advanced&dblist=638

--222.64.26.227 (talk) 23:43, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * http://oskicat.berkeley.edu/search/X?SEARCH=t:(Columbia%20Encyclopedia)&SORT=D

--222.64.26.227 (talk) 23:46, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * http://sfxprod.lib.latrobe.edu.au:9003/swinburne2/cgi/core/multi.cgi?sfx.request_id=6131119


 * WTF? The author of this "topic" appears to be trying to show that the Columbia Encyclopedia doesn't show up in numerous Google Scholars searches and hasn't been reviewed in any scholarly journal. Even if that were consistently true, a topic herein ought to be written in easily intelligible language and in a like format; this topic fails and therefore deserves removal.BLZebubba (talk) 09:52, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Standard reference work
I would like to see a reference sourced showing this was a standard reference work on the shelf of most book editors, critics, scholars, etc. I have heard this is, or was, true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.234.123.137 (talk) 04:42, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know that there is such a reference, but having worked at Random House in the 80s and 90s with an office next to the copyediting department, I can attest that they had to put the two copies of the Columbia Encyclopedia in a locked cabinet because editors would "borrow" them for weeks at a time. Before the internet, it was pretty widely used in book publishing by editorial departments. Ssterns (talk) 21:38, 29 September 2010 (UTC)