Talk:Columbia Encyclopedia

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"Poignant biographies". What does it mean? Mandel 17:13, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

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)

[edit] 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)