Digital Knowledge Sharing

1) What is a brief history of the encyclopedia?
Encyclopedia has appeared for almost 2000 years as summaries of extant scholarship in forms comprehensible to reader. the oldest work is Naturalis Historia which is written in ca. 77 CE by Pliny the Elder. Encyclopedias were written by clergypersons in Middle Ages. there are different encyclopedias from various countries for example, China, Japan and so forth. Now, the encyclopedia has been globalized . The free and digital Encyclopedia has also appeared on internet for user to read, download and quote.

2) What are some key features of that encyclopedia
a) according to Wikipedia
Encyclopaedias can be general, including articles on the topics of every field but from a particular cultural, ethnic or normal perspective

the aim of encyclopedic is to convey the important accumulated knowledge for the subject domain, such as an encyclopaedia of medicine, philosophy, or law.

the systematic method of organization is essential to making an encyclopaedia usable as a work of reference. they are the alphabetical method and hierarchical categories.

there is increasing effect on the collection, verification, summation and presentation of information of all kinds in modern multimedia and the information age.

b) according to Encyclopedia Brittannica
a multivolume compendium of all available knowledge, complete with maps and a detailed index, as well as numerous adjuncts such as bibliographies, illustrations, lists of abbreviations and foreign expressions, gazetteers and so forth. it is expected to include biographies of the significant men and women so that many people with their own language would have involved editing.
Encyclopaedias hace also come in all sizes , from a single 200-page volume written by one man to giant sets of 100 volumes or more.
the range of coverage of knowledge has varied according to the time and country of publication. Illustrations, atlases, and bibliographies have been omitted from many encyclopaedias, and for a long time it was not thought fitting to include biographies of living persons.

3) Which encyclopedia was most useful for this research?
i believe Encyclopedia Brittannica is much more useful than Encyclopedia. it is because of the historical background that Encyclopædia Britannica has been providing knowledge and information to people for almost 250 years. some scholars also have contributed to this Encyclopedia Brittannica such as Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie etc.
furthermore, the source and information are much more abundant than wikipedia.
therefore, because of its reliability, abundance of information and history, i would think Encyclopedia Brittannica was most useful.

4) Can you trust this encyclopedia (the one you used) 100%? Why or why not?
though this encyclopedia are useful, i still can not 100% trust in it. it is because there is a function that everybody can edit on the information. and i am not clear about the structure and functioning behind these encyclopedia. the reliability of these pages are still not higher than searching on books where we believe the author has done serious research on. after all, internet is so easy to access that the information can not be treated seriously.