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Thursday, 12 June 2008 |
www.larousse.fr
French encyclopaedia Larousse has been
around for a century and a half in print. But
now Larousse is trying a new venture – an online
version which aims to take on Wikipedia – but
with a difference. Like its model, it is free-access
and encourages contributions, but whereas
Wikipedia’s writers are anonymous and
sometimes unreliable, Larousse’s writers have
their names on the articles they submit which,
once written, become protected.
Alongside the user-written pieces, Larousse is
making available 150,000 articles from its
universal encyclopaedia, plus 10,000 images.
Larousse is promising more in the future, along with the inclusion later this year of hundreds of
video clips from channels such as National Geographic. “By becoming a contributor to
Larousse, you become associated with a publisher of prestige, recognised for the seriousness
and reliability of its content,” says Isabelle Jeuge-Maynart, the Larousse’s managing director.
“Respect for an author is central to our concept. That should reassure experts who are hesitant
to publish their work on the Internet.”
Several other companies have moved to rival Wikipedia with online encyclopaedias
including Google’s Knol, which also has identified authors. The public release has not had the
best of starts, however: the site has crashed many times due to interest raised by the media. Even
when access is possible, many of the site’s functions are unavailable, even after registration.
With time, it should nonetheless grow to be a valuable French-language tool for research or for
the curious.
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