Smellie’s Encyclopedia

[Missing Middlemen - II]

250 years ago, under the editorship of William Smellie, Encyclopedia Britannica was born.

For hundreds of years it was the go-to general knowledge encyclopedia in the English speaking world. It was written and edited by experts, carefully curated, and costly. 2010, at a whopping 32,000 pages, was the last printed edition.

Last I checked, Wikipedia has 40 million articles in 301 languages. Over 6 million in English alone. Not edited by experts, not carefully curated, and free.

There are no gatekeepers on information anymore. “Expert" is a word losing meaning.

“What do you know?” has become "What do you add to what we all know?”

That’s a question about processing, analysis, and application.
Accessing the information is not the challenge; utilizing it well is.