Wikisource talk:WikiProject 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica

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[edit] Templates, 2 entries

I copied a few templates over from wikisource.org that had not automatically been copied to en.wikisource.org, and added 2 new entires from the Project Gutenberg text. Can someone check that I haven't broken anything? I will probably drop in on this project occasionally and do an entry or two. — PhilHibbs | WP:talk | talk 13:46, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sister project Ad

Good idea, but I suggest holding back on implementaton for a little while. Editing in WS is a bit more complex than writing for WP, and there is a need to sort out the main page with links to tools like Wikimarkup, -- how to add end notes etc. Hopefully this should not take too long :) Apwoolrich 14:28, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

OK. My main motivation was to find out if this project was still alive :-) I would be much happier creating WP1911 articles if I had access to the source, as it's easier to get this sort of thing right first time than it is to come back and do markup (italics, accents, diacritics, etc.) later. — PhilHibbs | WP:talk | talk 13:19, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
This is a problem to which I can't see any easy answer. Maybe some editors who don't have easy access to an original paper copy do as much basic work as possible - italicising obvious things like book titles, formating the references section at the end, placing links to WP articles, coding for footnotes, etc. Then the final edit will have to be done by an editor with a paper copy to refer to. Its far from satisfactory, but I gather this problem will be the worst with volume 1 as the volumes now being worked on by Gutenberg will be much better done. Apwoolrich 18:17, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Images of encyclopedia pages.

From what I've read flat copies of public domain images cannot be copyrighted. In contrast a photograph of a public domain book at an angle is under copyright because the angle of the shot is creative. (In such a case I would say the flat image of the cover derived from the angled photograph would be public domain.)

This means that by stripping away any additional material flat images of the pages of the 1911 encyclopedia could be placed here even if the photographer claims copyright.

The first thing should be to place those images on wikisource. Once the images of the pages is online it will be easy to proofread or run through ocr software. http://classiceb.com/ http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/view/rc/s31p45.htm We only need one person with these sources. --Gbleem 17:17, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

We seem to be getting there. See [[1]]Apwoolrich 19:13, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Orphaned?

It appears as if this project has been orphaned. J.Steinbock

No Way!!Apwoolrich 19:44, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Absolutely not! I was editing the main project page the other night, and have been working on creating a list of first volume article names (corrected) so that a script can be written to create the listing pages. Images will be added in due course. To be honest, it's not something that's going to take off very quickly, until we've settled a few technical issues on how to present the original text in a new format without changing the meaning. The shoulder headings are causing me a bit of grief at the moment. GregRobson 21:07, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with Project Gutenberg 1911 Britannica - making new pages.

It has just come to light that PG split a long article and made two short ones. They are Aeronautics and Aerostation. In fact Aerostation is part of Aeronautics. Please take care to check with a printed version or Tim Sterling's online version that this has not happened elsewhere. We are aiming to reproduce the text as printed, and making new page headings where they did not exist is not helpful. Apwoolrich 19:48, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] EB1911 classification

A discussion has started on Scriptorium [2]about adopting the same classsification for the WS version as was used on the original printed version. This has distinct advantages. Your comments are welcomed. Apwoolrich 18:33, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Moved back to this page during archival maintenance. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 20:59, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Apwoolrich brought to my attention a portion of the EB1911 pages. From pages 879-947 of volume 29 of EB1911, the contributors/compilers took all of their articles and listed them according to what "branch" of human knowledge the articles belong to. This is, in a sense, a built-in categorization scheme. Apwoolrich and I would like to replace this scheme with the current one we use.

Our current heirarchy of categories was proposed by Robert Horning (who started that proposed heirarchy in July and hasn't really worked on it since) and is not complete or ever really decided upon. It seems like it would be better to replace our current scheme, which has many drawbacks and time requirements to be able to utilize it effectively, with the one the creators of the Encyclopedia made. The EB1911 version also has the possibility of a lot of cross-referencing and linking, to further boost it.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 20:48, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

To clarify this, the editors of EB1911 created 24 main classes of knowledge and added further sub-divisions within them. This list - the Classified Table of Contents occupies 4 columns in the printed book. This is followed by a Classified List of Articles in each of these classes. These are grouped in a typical classification - Chemistry - as General, Inorganic, Organic, Biographies. I should add that the biography lists feature in almost all the classified tables of articles and are a valuable strength of EB1911.
I have in mind that we should have a page for the Classifed Table and each entry is Wikilinked to the same entry in the Table of Articles. Once there each article entry is Wikilinked to the article itself. The articles would be categorised back to this scheme in the usual way.
I posted the Introduction to this on the EB1911 page some time ago and am part way through typing the Table of Contents which I will post shortly.
Make no mistake it will be a long job, but once done we are set up for the rest of the task of posting the articles from the remaining volumes. Apwoolrich 21:34, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm not entirely sure what you're proposing. Do you want to delete the EB1911 categories, and use the original index pages for navigation? If so, a link to the indexes could be added to the {{header}} template on the main page. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 22:03, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I am also confused. I think you want to make page of "Categories" but it really would be a list as put out in the EB1911. If so why would you not use the Wiki category system? I think we should use category tree the original authors designed, but we do not have to follow the list formatting.--BirgitteSB 22:12, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
That's exactly what we're proposing—we want to use a category tree, just a different one than the one Robert Horning created. I'm going to try to do a sort of mock illustration using pages 883 and 882 to try to explain away some of the confusion.
Looking at page 882 (and also 881), there are 24 different "meta-categories"; very broad subjects under which the entire encyclopedia fits. Starting at page 883 and following, we see that these broad, over-arching categories are also broken down into more specific sections. The first "meta-category" is Anthropology and Ethnology which we could use to be the category Category:EB1911:Anthropology and Ethnology. However, this meta-category can be broken down into other smaller, more specific categories (such as races and tribes, or contributors to the field of anthropology, or just general terms of anthropology). These sections could be turned into the categories Category:EB1911:Anthropology and Ethnology:General Subjects and Terms, Category:EB1911:Anthropology and Ethnology:Races and Tribes, and Category:EB1911:Anthropology and Ethnology:Biographies. Very similar methods could be used for the other 23 meta-categories, as well.
These similar categories are the ones that we are thinking of using and substituting in for the current categories that we are using.
You'll notice that this isn't really different from what we are currently doing with categorization, but for a few points (the biggest similarity is that the current scheme we use adds one category from the EB1911 category heirarchy to each article while the proposed scheme would do the same):
  1. This scheme of categories and its heirarchy is complete and it is comprehensive. We know that we don't need much expertise to be able to tag these pages in order to have a very well thought out category scheme because we are using one many experts in the field have created. The current scheme we use will require much knowledge of the heirarchy and much time spent reading the articles to be able to apply the appropriate category to it. With the very few people we have working on it, this would take a decade or two to complete.
  2. We will not have to worry about having an "over-exhaustive" category scheme. The current one we are using is artificial, and so more categories than needed will probably be made so we can make sure that we can "get everything tagged." Since we do not know all the articles in all 29 volumes, we will either have an over-exhaustive amount of categories or we will have to keep thinking up new ones when we can't seem to find a current category that fits with the content of the article. This is another time saver.
I'm sure there are other benefits, but I can't think of any at the moment.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 02:49, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
The idea has my support. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 03:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
That is exactly what we should do. :)--BirgitteSB 03:37, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
If this gets going I suggest we work up one of the shorter classifications to get the mechanics right and perhaps design some new templates for it. The present design of the Categories page (see [3] for an example) is not suitable, I feel for the mass of entries each category has. The Anthropology and Ethnology classification noted above occupies only one printed page but has around 600 articles mentioned. The text in fact occupies 6 columns of small print. Instead I suggest we develop something similar to the EB1911 volume navigation page [4] for this allows 4 columns instead of 3 and allows sideways scrolling, which the regular category page does not.
I am going to mention this proposal on the talk pages of all the editors who have signed up for the EB1911 project. Apwoolrich 18:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm not quite following what you're suggesting. I don't see what Category:Wikisource has to do with categorizing EB1911 pages or how a layout similar to 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vol 1:1 will solve the problem.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 18:18, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Do we not also need pages so readers can navigate their way round the classifications? I posted these as examples of good and bad layout. Apwoolrich 18:38, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, yes, but I'm confused about your proposition. We definitely do, but once inside the category tree, I don't think it will be hard at all to navigate. This is the tree that I was thinking we'd use, since it's straight from the tables (note: these are all categories, but I don't feel like typing out all the extra syntax, so I'm leaving it as plain text):
  1. EB1911
    1. Anthropology and Ethnology
      1. General Subjects and Terms
      2. Races and Tribes
      3. Biographies
    2. Archaeology and Antiquities
      1. Subject
      2. Biographies
    3. Art
      1. General
      2. Architecture
        1. Subjects
        2. Biographies
      3. Music
        1. Subjects
        2. Instruments
        3. Biographies
etc.
Using sub-categories, the navigation would be fairly easy, I think. And, when we type up the classified list of articles (when we finally get around to that volume), we can of course do much interlinking (link the titles of the sections to their repective categories in the category tree). If I'm missing something (which I might be) then please tell me.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 19:04, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Oops. I think I understand what you mean now. Am I right in saying that you want to offer another form of navigation (similar to how we've split all the pages up according to what volume each article falls in) where we split up the Encyclopedia and parse it according to what "meta-category," and "lesser-category" each article falls in. Like, a person can click on a link that says "Art" and get a tabular listing of all the results that fall under the area of art?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 19:08, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, exactly that. The user can then click an article name in the category and get to it. Without this other index it will be hard to navigate round the work once it gets bigger. I feel we should be getting on with this work now instead of waiting until we get to vol 29, for readers are going to need it as we do the work, even though most of the links will be red until, the articles get posted

In my note on your user page I asked about an EB1911-specific search engine. The printed index is vast and is keyed to the page numbers. It gets readers into data within articles not just the article titles. I can't see it being practical to have the text of this big index on WS, so a search engine is the only answer. Kind regards. Apwoolrich 19:42, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I like all the current discussion, my only thoughts are that the category names don't get too long with the concatenation perhaps instead of Category:EB1911:Anthropology and Ethnology:Races and Tribes we can use Category:EB1911:Races and Tribes and only distinguish further if there is ambiguity or a clash (like in Biographies). This sort of endeavour is good as it does not alter or destroy any of the original volume's work whilst adding functionality the orginal volume never had. GregRobson 20:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the search engine. IF/When we ever get the namespace manager enabled, then we can make EB1911 it's own namespace the would allow you to only search the EB1911 namespace. Like we currently can do with Help, Template, etc. However the search engine will still probably be as crappy as ever.--BirgitteSB 20:55, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't think a distinct search engine or namespace for one work is feasible, regardless of how vast it may be. A more useful feature that could be used globally would be to add the ability to search a single category and subcategories. This would be useful in a wide range of circumstances, from finding a particular page in Category:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica to checking if a proxy is listed in Category:Wikisource:Blocked open proxies. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 22:46, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I support this new categorization scheme fully. It is true to the original source, easily linkable, and people can work on their favorite categories, using Tim Starling's scans, rather than being subject to specific letters. I vote yes. Danny 23:15, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed with Pathoschild's comments. Having the ability to search categories and sub-categories would allow us not only to be able to search all of EB1911's contents but also help us search specifically in the realm of speeches or poems (a boost for us having portals). Having the ability to search categories does everything searching a single namespace can do but it gives us more freedoms for searches.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:40, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I think these are great ideas. Does this mean I could find something like, EB1911 > Art > Music > Instruments (appropriately linked to pages containing the contents of each category and subcategory), in the article for "violin", etc.? That would be good. - Antireconciler 06:10, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Just added Classified Table of contents to EB1911 page. This is the basic list which sets out the form of the EB1911. Have to add the header. Apwoolrich 18:55, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Just added the Classified table of articles - headers only. [5] This is the proposed category scheme with no articles included, which will be the next stage if the scheme gets anywhere. Still needs a bit of tweaking for typos etc and formating. Apwoolrich 18:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Could you add a link in this discussion to the header list so that we can access it from the Scriptorium? Thanks!—Zhaladshar (Talk) 18:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
What if we linked all the headings, sub-headings, sub-sub-headings, etc., to their appropriate category as well? That'd be a nice bit of navigation.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 19:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, thats the way forward. Can a Bot do it, or must it be all hand-coded? Apwoolrich 19:16, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
But before that is done it needs a good proof-check in case I have missed a line. Apwoolrich 19:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
I know nothing about bots (tried to get one started myself and dropped it altogether—far too difficult to figure out) but I would imagine that it wouldn't be too hard to at least get a bot to code some of it. It really wouldn't take too much time to hand-do, though (it'd mostly be copy and paste).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 19:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Is there somewhere I can find out how to do it? Alternatively can someone code up a bit I can copy, please? Apwoolrich 21:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Gone through it proof-checking, added Text Quality Infobox on discussion page. Apwoolrich 07:29, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Excellent work! Shall we begin creating the categories and organizing the category tree?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 02:01, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, please, once somebody shows me how to do it:) Before this we also need to work out a protocol for dealing with long articles. In recent days I have noted instances of long articles being split to create new article headings which don't appear in the printed version. I am not clear they are coming this way from PG or WS editors are doing it. We can either insist that articles are uploaded 'as is', and the constituent sections are indicated by the use of 'header code' ==00== or we can allow the split, with each section having its own header, but amend the EB1911 category tree to add the parts to the article name, thus.

Article name =

Aeronautics

New section name =

(1)Aerostatics

I have an open mind, but welcome comment as to the best way forward. We are also getting articles posted from later volumes which are not noted in the main page since this is only dealing with vol 1, so maybe we ought to be tbinking about expanding the volume tables there. Apwoolrich 07:31, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

In terms of "doing it," isn't all that we have to do to simply delete the current category, and add the one like "[[Category:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/MAIN CATEGORY HEADING/SUB-CATEGORY HEADING/SUB-SUB-CATEGORY HEADING]]"? I really think that's it (once we can agree on how to go about the tree—that is do we want "[[Category:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/..." or "[[Category:EB1911/...").
For very large articles, we should split them up into other sub-pages. I believe the entry for the United States is currently split up because the text would be hundreds of kilobytes. But for most articles, they should all be on page.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 23:46, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
I haven't really followed this discussion, but is it necessary to have the full category tree mapped in every category name? We could very well base the category structure on the original, but perhaps use more human-readable category names more inline with our own category structure. For example, we could use something like [[Category:Nations in Europe (EB1911)]] instead of [[Category:EB1911/Geography/Nations/Europe]]. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 03:46, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
"Human readable" What do you mean?. The idea behind this proposal is that it is the one actually written by the compilers for EB1911. Do alter the wording to suit the present structure is to defeat the object, I think. Apwoolrich 17:54, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
What I think Pathoschild means would not alter the actual structure of the category scheme. Behind the scenes (like when you actually clicked on the category link), the entire structure would be identical to the one the EB1911 compilers devised. The difference would be in its presentation. Instead of having the very stilted category [[Category:EB1911/Main classified heading/sub-heading/sub-sub-heading]] instead, the wording would be such that it matches natural language discourse (well, what exactly is this article talking about? Ah, it's talking about a tribe of people. So let's make the category [[Category:Tribes and races (EB1911)]]) Once a person clicked on the latter category, they would see that it is categorized under [[Category:Anthropology and Ethnology (EB1911)]]. Looking up at the partial list near the beginning of this discussion, we are still preserving the actual structure of category hierarchy, we are just changing the language in which this structure is presented.
On this matter, I slightly lean to the stance of the stilted presentation (it's the math and logic in me) over the natural language version because I can see right in the category the entire overall hierarchy for that branch of the category tree, whereas the human-readable version would not have it. Of course, I know other people might feel differently, but that is merely my partiality.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 19:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More Useful Projects?

Aren't there more useful projects that people could be working on rather than an encyclopedia. I fail to see the relevance of this project. Wikipedia has revolutionized encyclopedias and therefore the other versions are obsolete. I can think of a number of projects that would be more useful such as Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas Pbarnes 23:09, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Then work on it. No one's making you work on this project. But volunteers have a whole heck of a lot of freedom in deciding what they want to work on. And there is historic importance to this encyclopedia as well--it's not trying to take WP's place, but it is trying to preserve history.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:31, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia has also made truth obsolite. As there will no longer be published or printed works, the truth will flow with the tide. EB1911 is valuable because it is immutabile. -- Petri Krohn 03:31, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Linking: EB1911 or Wikipedia?

Should links on pages go to Wikipedia or other EB1911 articles? -- Petri Krohn 03:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Google Books

It looks like Google is putting up the Eleventh Edition. I added links on the Project Page to the completed (?) volumes. There are others currently only showing "Image not available" in Full View, which presumably are still being worked on. --Jmb 16:55, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Missing Volume 1 article

There are two articles called Abdera on page 33 of Volume 1. The first one is about the ancient Spanish town of Abdera. That article is missing here. We do have the following article about a town called Abdera in Thrace. --Jmb 11:21, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

As a result, 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abdera has been deleted. Do we want to restore it and convert it into a dab page? John Vandenberg 03:30, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
That's a good idea, I set it up. Feel free to tweak it if you like. --Jmb 20:34, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] author in header

At Template_talk:Header#header inclusion update, Eclecticology has raised the fact that the {{EB1911}} doesnt handle an author param. Adding an author param seems appropriate, as the named authors are usually notable people, and recording this is a way we can "value-add" to our EB1911. John Vandenberg 02:23, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] navigating sub sections

Again at Template_talk:Header#header inclusion update, Eclecticology raised the problem with the navigation of EB1911 articles that have sub sections that are on sub pages due to the size of the article. e.g. 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/United States, 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abbey. I recently "fixed" many of these to use {{EB1911}} instead of {{header}}, but that was just a partial fix. "Abbey" uses a menu template to allow easy navigation. I think we should apply a similar approach to all of the others. John Vandenberg 02:36, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] EB1911 layout

Hi everybody, I had a problem concerning the layout of the internal links in EB1911. I followed the instructions in "WikiProject 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Style Manual", where under the heading "Hyperlinks within Article Text" I found these guidelines:

Often within articles there are specific references to other EB1911 articles, and they are usually noted by having the whole word in small caps. Project Gutenburg text will show the word in all caps. Use the template smallcaps and link the word. Example: Abscond.

I used the above mentioned template for all links in the articles I contributed until now. But it seems to be wrong. I suppose I misunderstood the guidelines. Links in the text don't need smallcaps, but only the links in caps in EB1911 do. I would like a confirmation about this please. I think I have a lot of changes to make. Greetings --Toby 09:04, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can see, you have been following the style guide correctly. I didnt even know the EB1911 style guide existed. John Vandenberg (chat) 06:55, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Hey sorry I didn't mean to add confusion by changing the good work you have been doing Toby. As far as I understand the style guide the smallcaps template is used when that format is used in the orginal. Abscond is a good example, with the page scans here, of EB using the small capitals. This is the way I have always interpreted the style guide. Although this is not a big issue, it would be nice to have consistency across all the pages. Suicidalhamster 13:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
So what is an example of when not to use smallcaps ? John Vandenberg (chat) 14:21, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I suppose anytime when Wikisource is linking something which wasn't suggested in the orginal. So Lyall, Sir Alfred Comyn has the titles of works linked to normal wikisource pages (ie no Encyclopædia Britannica/... beginning bit). Alternatively anytime the links are at the discretion of the editor, so those I changed at Airdrie would fall into this. This is my personal take, however I understand if people have different opinions. Suicidalhamster 15:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Ok, so the crux of the issue is small caps where it doesnt appear as small caps in the original ? The style manual says "they are usually noted by having the whole word in small caps"; can we change that to always so there is less confusion? John Vandenberg (chat) 22:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah that would be ok. There is also the part, under 1.5 Small Caps, which says: If the original text shows a word in Small Caps then use the template {{small-caps|Text here}}. This seems to remove most of the uncertainty (we could add something about aviod using this template for other words). Could this sentence be added to the bit you quoted, both talk about the same thing but are split up. Suicidalhamster 09:52, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pages needing attention

Pathosbot ran through the the encyclopedia pages for a recent bot task, and found the following issues:

The following pages are missing one or more navigation links:

The following pages might be better off with the 'article' parameter (which was removed anyway):

The following pages had three Wikipedia links (I moved one into 'other_projects' for now):

The following pages are using {{subpage-header}} or {{header}} instead (I skipped them):

These pages seem to have two headers:

—{admin} Pathoschild 04:27:00, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The Infinitesimal Calculus article is long and broken up into sections. The top navigator goes from article to article and the bottom one goes from section to section. I don't think there the project guidelines are very specific on this so, while it's not something I'd do myself, I don't think anyone can call it wrong at this point.--RDBury (talk) 04:36, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Alternate Google scans

It looks like Google has 3 or 4 different scans of EB. I have links on my user page in case the link here has missing or unreadable pages. Is there there any interest in putting the alternate links here as well? --RDBury (talk) 04:27, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Also to note that some of the Google Books scans hyperlinked may not be able to be accessed from outside of the US, eg. vol. 2 is inaccessible from Oz. -- billinghurst (talk) 09:52, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Transwiki'd 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amsterdam (Holland)

The text now at 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amsterdam (Holland). If someone could format it appropriately that would be great. Thanks. -- billinghurst (talk) 02:55, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Synopses

Have a look at my efforts at User:Eclecticology/EB Synopsis. Is there any interest in this kind of thing? It is interesting to see the development of the EB over the years, and it would be intersting to see this at the article level. Everything on that list except the most recent one is in the public domain. I am on the lookout for copies of 10th and 12th editions (supplements) so that they could be added. It would be nice to include the 2nd through 8th editions but they are very difficult and expensive to acquire. My most interesting finding in this is the amount of change that took place over the 45-year lifespan of the 14th edition. One could never be sure that the information in one small town library's version of the EB would match what was found in another small town. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 17:19, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Active projects

At Template_talk:Welcome#Add a Project_Tab to the Template.3F.3F.3F we had a discussion about having a Wikiprojects tab and have implemented such where we point to active projects. My next idea is to have active projects rather than be a flat list, to have a different project appear weekly. Obviously EB1911 gets such a guernsey, and I would like your feedback on a beta product available for your review at Template:Active projects/var. Comments can be pasted to this page or to Template talk:Active projects/var. billinghurst (talk) 12:50, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

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