Webs@Work

Encyclopaedia Britannica will let readers and contributing experts help expand and maintain entries online to keep the reference work up to date. Experts will also be enrolled in a reward scheme and given help to promote their command of a subject.

Britannica is not going the way of Wikipedia however, which is put together entirely with the help of its volunteer experts. User-generated content would sit alongside the encyclopaedia entries and the official material would carry a “Britannica Checked” stamp to distinguish it.

We believe that the creation and documentation of knowledge is a collaborative process but not a democratic one.

Jorge Cauz, president of Encyclopaedia Britannica in a blog entry about responsibility as publishers and the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ fad.

Alongside the move towards more openness, will be a re-design of the Britannica site and the creation of the web-based tools that visitors can use to put together their own reference materials. Britannica has unveiled a beta, or trial, version of what will become the finished Britannica Online website.