Friday, October 5, 2012

The First Encyclopedia.


Naturalis Historia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference book which holding a summary of information. Encyclopedia is divided into articles or entries, which are usually marked with alphabets. Encyclopedia entries are longer and more detail than dictionaries. Encyclopedia articles focus on factual information to cover thing for which the arcticle name stands. Encyclopedia has existed since 2000 years ago. There is a new modern encyclopedia around the 17th century. Some modern encyclopedias, such as Wikipedia, are electronic and available for everyone. The purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge and to help people to find about something that they don't know. The oldest encyclopedia book is Naturalis Historia. Naturalis Historia created by Pliny the Elder from Roman. He made a work of 37 chapters which including natural history, architecture, medicine, geography, geology, and all aspects of the world around him. He said that he compiled 20,000 facts from 2000 works by over 200 authors, and added many others from his own experience. His work was published around 77-79 AD. The contents of his work are large and comprehensive.