The word “encyclopedia” has now become synonymous with “Wikipedia”, and vice versa. In less than two decades this extraordinary reference tool has become the most important source of knowledge on the Internet. Unfortunately, for many people it has also become the only one, obsuring a loto of other works with a long history of excellence and quality. This evolution has also hampered the very concept of the encyclopedia and its function.

An encyclopedia is a reference work that contains information about a wide variety of topics or even just about specific subjects. The goal of giving a systematic form to human knowledge makes these tools the ideal vehicle for many study and research activities.

 

Academic Research

Traditionally, scholastic research involved a lot of consultation work accomplished between school, home and library. Today, these activities are increasingly limited to searching and printing a Wikipedia page at the expense of any further investigation. In fact, an encyclopedia should be a starting point, not the final one, offering good insights into more specific works. The best-known and accredited encyclopedias provide the opportunity to add more legitimate sources to research, presentations, and theses. Credibility is important because very often online sources have not been accurately verified.

Personal Research

Good personal culture is not only useful in lounges conversations, and encyclopedias are an ideal tool to develop and expand it. In addition to general works, there are encyclopedias about specific areas such as medicine, law, music, history, and so on. The latter provide more in-depth information than the general ones, while the former are an excellent starting point for venturing into greater depths.

Professional Research

General encyclopedias provide a comprehensive view of a wide variety of topics, while subject-specific ones provide detailed information on specific areas. Any profession that requires frequent consultations has certainly a dedicated encyclopedia. There are, for example, encyclopedias about psychiatry, law, economics, medicine and many other subjects. Professionals use it to control data, facts, events or to get more information on particular topics.

Not only paper…

The encyclopedia displayed in the living room library is a thing of the past, but it is important to remember that these reference tools have not lost their function. Each public and school library offers numerous works of this type. Moreover, over the last decades, technology innovoations allowed to completely change the way we access the knowledge. Traditional books are now offered in form of CDs / DVDs and online versions that make the consultation much more fast and efficient.

However, on the Internet we can find everything: works with a respected and consolidated name, and other more improvised ones that have the sole purpose of attracting visitors but which are often susceptible to inaccuracies, partiality and poor reliability.

Some good news

Talking about works with a long story of success and quality, I’d like to point out the release of some encyclopaedias in form of mobile apps. These apps can be used on a variety of mobile platforms (iOS, Android, Kindle) as well as on Windows 10 systems, they can be accessed offline (Internet connection not required), making them flexible tools to always bring with you.

Enciclopedia dell'arte
le Garzantine - Antichità classica
Enciclopedia dell’Arte
la Zanichelli 2017
Antichità classica
Garzantina Economia
Garzantina Filosofia
Garzantina Letteratura
Economia
Filosofia
Letteratura

The Zanichelli Encyclopaedia is a powerful tool intended to work out doubtful information, clear up ideas, supply certainties, suggest new issues of discussion in any branch of knowledge. You will find proper names along with specialist expressions and common nouns requiring an encyclopaedic investigation; all entries are developed in a comprehensive way, with a great number of online resources: interactive maps, images, tables (their access needs an Internet connection, even in the downloadable version).

The new Edition features a brand new and optimized user interface, a search engine more efficient, the ability to set the font size to help reading on bigger devices such as tablets. Moreover, all the geographic entries now include a map and the flag.

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Product description

  • Contents are updated quarterly
  • More than 71,000 entries compiled by specialists of every field, regularly updated
  • Birth-and-death dates and places of all personalities included; dates of artistic and literary works
  • 14,000 geographical entries
  • A set of 15,000 cross-references among the entries

Technical Specifications

  • iTunes: Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch using iOS 6 and later versions
  • Google Play: Compatibile with smartphones and tablets Android 4.0 e later versions
  • Amazon: Compatibile with smartphones and tablets using Android 4.0 and later versions
  • Windows: Compatible with PCs Windows 10 (all editions) and smartphones and tablets Windows 10 Mobile and later versions

Main Features

  • Complete offline use
  • User interface in Italian and English
  • Direct search in the entry index box, search by headword or full text
  • Advanced search by categories/labels

 

The app la Zanichelli 2016 is available on the following online stores:

google amazon appstore

 

 

 

The app “le Garzantine – Antichità Classica” is a complete overview of Greek and Latin civilizations, touching every aspect: from Pericles to Augustus, and from Aeschylus to Lucretius, the whole history, with prominent figures, places and peoples, traditions, religion and myths, language and literature, theatre and music, philosophy and science, art, architecture, and archaeology: an alphabetical and interdisciplinary reference, essential to approach the classical culture.

Entries span over a time period from the origins of the Cretan and Mycenaean civilizations up to the decline of the Roman Empire, and over a geographical span of the same size: Greece and the Greek colonies, Etruscans and Rome, all other civilizations in the Mediterranean area, Near East, India, Egypt, the Judaic world, the ancient Italic, Celtic, and Germanic people.

The app allows for easy and user-friendly features, from a direct search along the full list of entries, to an advanced search within headwords or full-text, in order to display those entries satisfying the search parameters.

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Product description

  • More than 8500 entries written by specialists
  • Places and dates of birth for each figure
  • Dating of literary, philosophical, and artistic works
  • Special pages with thematical widenings
  • Chronological tables of Greek and Roman history
  • Genealogical tables
  • 250 summaries of philosophical key works of the written tradition
  • A circuit of 5200 cross-references between entries

Technical Specifications

  • iTunes: Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch using iOS 6 and later versions
  • Google Play: Compatibile with smartphones and tablets Android 4.0 e later versions
  • Amazon: Compatibile with smartphones and tablets using Android 4.0 and later versions
  • Windows: Compatible with PCs Windows 10 (all editions) and smartphones and tablets Windows 10 Mobile and later versions

Main Features

  • Complete offline use
  • User interface in Italian and English
  • Index search in the entry box
  • Headword and full text search

 

The app Garzantina Antichità Classica is available on the following online stores:

google amazon appstore

 

 

 

 

 

The app “le Garzantine – Economia” is the ultimate tool needed to understand the language of economics and finance, useful to get one’s bearing between spreads, ratings, defaults, national debts, exchange rates, especially in these years of crisis. Among the entries: economists, from Adam Smith to Paul Krugman; economic theories, from Mercantilism to Physiocracy, from classical economics to Marginalism, from Keynes’ teachings to the Public Choice school; history and geography of economic development, from the industrial revolution up to globalization.

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Product description

  • More than 4300 entries written by specialists
  • A wide number of external links to documents with statistical data, diagrams, and charts
  • A circuit of 4400 cross-references between entries

Technical Specifications

  • iTunes: Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch using iOS 6 and later versions
  • Google Play: Compatibile with smartphones and tablets Android 4.0 e later versions
  • Amazon: Compatibile with smartphones and tablets using Android 4.0 and later versions

Main Features

  • Complete offline use
  • User interface in Italian and English
  • Index search in the entry box
  • Headword and full text search

 

The app Garzantina Economia is available on the following online stores:

google amazon appstore

 

 

 

 

 

The history of western thought gathered in a complete and accurate encyclopedia. Authors, doctrines, schools (from atomism to existentialism, and from positivism to phenomenology), research scopes (ethics, logic, aesthetics, epistemology, hermeneutics, language philosophy, neurosciences), concepts (from abduction to ideal type, from entelechy to truth, from artificial intelligence to postmodern). Furthermore, 300 key works in the history of philosophy, annotated and set against the production of the author, and entries dedicated to “human sciences”: pedagogy, psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, theology.

The app allows for easy and user-friendly features, from a direct search along the full list of entries, to an advanced search within headwords or full-text, in order to display those entries satisfying the search parameters.

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Product description

  • More than 3300 entries written by specialists
  • Places and dates of birth for each figure
  • Dating of works
  • 300 summaries of philosophical key works
  • Synoptical chronology
  • A circuit of 4500 crossreferences between entries

Technical Specifications

  • iTunes: Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch using iOS 6 and later versions
  • Google Play: Compatibile with smartphones and tablets Android 4.0 e later versions
  • Amazon: Compatibile with smartphones and tablets using Android 4.0 and later versions

Main Features

  • Complete offline use
  • User interface in Italian and English
  • Index search in the entry box
  • Headword and full text search

 

The app Garzantina Filosofia is available on the following online stores:

google amazon appstore

 

 

 

 

 

Spanning from Homer to Dan Brown, the app “le Garzantine – Medioevo” offers a comprehensive reference of 1000 years of history and civilization, from the end of the classic world up to the down of the Renaissance, that laid the foundations of modern Europe, are dissected by means of main figures, events, and institutions. From Charlemagne to Frederick Barbarossa, from Benedict of Norcia to Francis of Assisi, from Giotto to Simone Martini, from Boccaccio to François Villon, from Abelard to Occam, from paladin Orlando to Tristan and Iseult, this alphabetical and interdisciplinary reference brings you to discover one of the most complex and fascinating historical period: society, culture, tradition, imagination.

A voyage centered in western Europe, spanning over the European East, the Slavic world, the Byzantine empire, the Jewish world, Islam, and the Far East.

The app allows for easy and user-friendly features, from a direct search along the full list of entries, to an advanced search within headwords or full-text, in order to display those entries satisfying the search parameters.

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Product description

  • More than 8000 entries written by specialists
  • Places and dates of birth for each figure
  • Dating of literary, philosophic, and artistic works
  • Special pages with thematic widenings
  • Chronologic tables
  • Tables of royal and imperial dynasties, popes, and antipopes
  • Historic and thematic atlas
  • A circuit of 12.000 cross-references between entries

Technical Specifications

  • iTunes: Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch using iOS 6 and later versions
  • Google Play: Compatibile with smartphones and tablets Android 4.0 e later versions
  • Amazon: Compatibile with smartphones and tablets using Android 4.0 and later versions

Main Features

  • Complete offline use
  • User interface in Italian and English
  • Index search in the entry box
  • Headword and full text search

 

The app Garzantina Medioevo is available on the following online stores:

google amazon appstore

 

 

 

 

 

Spanning from Homer to Dan Brown, the app “le Garzantine – Letteratura” is the most comprehensive encyclopedia of the literature of every period and all countries, and an up-to-date tool to discover worldwide authors and works from the beginning to the present day. You will find every information about poets and novelists, movements and currents – from baroque to futurism – genres from science-fiction to thriller, together with rhetorical figures, basical metrics, the summary of 600 masterpieces (from Dante’s Comedy to Anna Karenina, from Hamlet to Moby Dick), and the winners of the most famous literary awards, including the Nobel prize.

The app allows for easy and user-friendly features, from a direct search along the full list of entries, to an advanced search within headwords or full-text, in order to display those entries satisfying the search parameters.

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Product description

  • More than 10.000 entries written by specialists
  • Places and dates of birth for each figure
  • Dating of works
  • Special pages with thematic widenings
  • 600 summaries of literary masterpieces
  • The Nobel prize and the most important literary awards, with their winners
  • A circuit of 2500 cross-references between entries

Requirements

  • iTunes: Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch using iOS 6 and later versions
  • Google Play: Compatibile with smartphones and tablets Android 4.0 e later versions
  • Amazon: Compatibile with smartphones and tablets using Android 4.0 and later versions

Main Features

  • Complete offline use
  • User interface in Italian and English
  • Index search in the entry box
  • Headword and full text search

 

The app Garzantina Letteratura is available on the following online stores:

google amazon appstore

 

 

 

 

 

From the collaboration with Edigeo, a new app: “Enciclopedia dell’Arte Zanichelli” for all major smartphones and tablets on the market, non in mobile version offers a consolidated reliable and updated reference tool with a long track record in the publishing industry.

The Enciclopedia dell’Arte Zanichelli drives you throughout figures, movements, genres, and techniques of visual arts and architecture of any age, from cave painting to video art. The list of 10.000 entries includes biographies of painters, sculptors, architects, designers, together with illustrators, photographers, tapestry-weavers, ebonists, and other minor art figures; from universally known figures like Michelangelo, Rembrandt or Picasso, up to the most recent forms of art expression and to young artists from the four corners of the Earth; the headword list includes art collectors, critics, theorists and historians, together with the profiles of the main museums, galleries, and art magazines..

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Product Descvription

  • More than 10,000 entries
  • 1500 images
  • 3500 cross-references between entries

Specifications

  • iTunes: compatible with iPhone, iPad e iPod touch using iOS 6 and later versions
  • Google Play: compatible with smartphones and tablets Android 4.0 and later versions
  • Amazon: compatible with smartphones and tablets using Android 4.0 and later versions (including Fire devices)

Main Features

  • User interface in Italian and English
  • Complete offline use
  • Direct search in the entry index box, search by headword or full text
  • Advanced search by categories/labels

 

The app Enciclopedia dell’Arte Zanichelli is available on the following online stores:

google amazon appstore