The New Georgia Encyclopedia (GA)

www.newgeorgiaencyclopedia.org

A trivia question: What state is home to governors James Oglethorpe and Herman Talmadge, authors Alice Walker and Margaret Mitchell, jazz musician Ray Charles, Olympian Wyomia Tyus, legislator Grace Towns Hamilton, CocaCola and a distinctive granite admired worldwide? Need another hint? It is also the home of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and former US president Jimmy Carter.

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Proud of its wide-ranging history, Georgia has mobilized a diverse group of resources to create a source of authoritative information about its people, places, history, institutions, and its contributions to culture, business, science, religion, sports, media, and more.

Called the New Georgia Encyclopedia, it is a "work in progress" that exists entirely online now, although it was originally proposed as both a traditional print and electronic publication.

The NGE is a project of the following institutions:

Foundations and corporations have also contributed.

An Ambitious Vision

The NGE's vision is very broad and unique for an encyclopedia, covering issues affecting the present and the future as well as the past. Its history page states:

"The partners in the project and the editorial staff believed that The New Georgia Encyclopedia should cover a wide spectrum of subjects rather than focus, as many state and regional encyclopedias have, on history and culture. They also believed that the NGE should examine issues affecting the state's present and future as well as its past. Because Georgia is one of the fastest-growing states in the nation, documenting its story in any full sense means including articles on the problems and opportunities created by this rapid growth."

A history professor from the University of Georgia is editor, and each section is edited by a topic specialist, according to a September 2000 article in the Atlanta Business Chronicle. The original budget for the encyclopedia, which is free to the online public, was $2.3 million, the article states. A print version may eventually be published.

Plans call for 1600 articles to be completed by January, 2006, but the outline of the final work is already online, with links to completed articles and titles of prospective pieces already listed under topical headers.

Here's the list of sections currently online, most sparsely inhabited right now:

Index pages provide alphabetical lists of existing, recent and forthcoming articles. Supplementary readings and relevant external links are given with many articles.

An inviting "Destinations" page displays articles about the state's arts, history, and natural sights.

A wonderful section called "Galleries" takes visitors through audio-visual tours of Georgia's music, literature, folk arts, sports, museums and other aspects of its heritage.

Rotating features and photographs on the front page and some subordinate pages, including historically or culturally important news items, keep the resource fresh and interesting to repeat visitors, even without the full complement of articles. The NGE is updated weekly.

This will be a fine resource for Georgia students, teachers or anyone doing research on the state, but also for newcomers or visitors to the state who want to acquire some background, to writers needing to check out a quick fact, and, of course, to trivia fans.

A Few Suggestions

It isn't really fair to judge such an ambitious project so early in its infancy. However, I would hope the boring tree structure now taking up a central location on each topic page will eventually give way to featured articles and text to entice readers to explore the entries. Access to topics via a tree outline and alphabetical listing could still be provided.

One thing could be done right now to enhance interest in the work in progress: Instead of burying the list of newly contributed articles under the "Index" header on the top banner, the editors could earmark a place for new material teasers on one of the home page sidebars. Educators and other interested people could be offered the opportunity to sign up for an e-mail list announcing new entries. Gradually, the constituency for this wonderful resource could grow.

Posted by WWC: August 17, 2004   Permalink