Specialized Historical Encyclopedias - What is the difference between general and specialized encyclopedias?

The spelling?

General encyclopedias are large, multi-volume reference works that cover a broad range of topics, each without a great deal of depth. Oh, you mean like the World Book Encyclopedia I used for my 6th grade report on killer whales? Yes, exactly. A list of the general encyclopedias the WSU Libraries owns is below. Although college students rarely use these encyclopedias as sources for research, they can be helpful as places to get a basic idea about your topic, begin developing a set of keywords used to search for other materials, and consult bibliographies for other materials on your topic. If a general encyclopedia includes bibliographies it is noted below.

General Encyclopedias

• Britannica Online *cross references
• The New Encyclopædia Britannica (Hol Ref AE5 .E363 2002)
• Encyclopedia Americana (Hol Ref AE5 .E333 1999) *bibliographies
• Collier’s Encyclopedia (Hol Ref AE5 .C683 1994)
• Academic American Encyclopedia (Hol Ref AE5 .A23 1997) *bibliographies

Specialized encyclopedias are different from general encyclopedias as they focus on a particular topic, culture, time period, event, etc. Although they are most often structured like general encyclopedias in that they have alphabetic sets of entries, they provide much more depth concerning their subject matter. Specialized encyclopedias are a key resource format for most World Civ research assignments. To view specialized encyclopedia examples, check the Guide to Specialized Encyclopedias for World Civilizations.