Encyclopedia Britannica Update

Ben Amundgaard said:

The EBNE resource itself is just about done. However, for a number of reasons, it won't ship for about 2 weeks (we'll put a ship date on the PDP today or tomorrow). Here are the main reasons:

1. It is our practice to give around 2 weeks' notice before we ship a pre-pub. This gives people an opportunity to place a last-minute pre-order; it allows people an opportunity to cancel their pre-order; and it gives people a warning that we are going to charge their credit card.
2. The people who got a refund when it first shipped and put in a new order at the original pre-pub price will need to be processed as pre-pub orders again.
3. We can't process only a portion of the pre-pub orders.
4. We want everyone to have to chance to look the product over and return it if they have concerns or are not happy with it. With all that is going on with the L7 launch, we feel that shipping the product right now would limit the ability of sales and customer service to give each of you the attention you may need.

Thanks again for your patience on this!

I'm sure most will disagree but this will work awesome for me since I bought 7 this month

Not sure I agree with this decision.  I understand the reasoning, but I think this is a special case, considering the flubbed release, then the lengthy delay in prepping the final product.  Oh, well.  I'm sure it'll be worth the (even longer) wait.

I am undecided on this resource. I think it would be neat, but my main concern is academic research - not just personal enlightenment. I have been told all my life that I shouldn't cite a "general" encyclopedia in my academic works. What is everyone's take on this? I certainly feel that the ISBE and AYBD are worthy resources for academic work. What about the Encyclopedia Britannica?

Josh, buying books for research citings is tricky.  I got a geology book that was supposed to be new. But not ... someone earlier bought it solely for bibliography-pumping-up. 

So there you go ... don't cite Britannica ... just copy the bibliographies!

I'm joking of course.

Mark, I think an accurate answer can be found by going to the Product page, The "Buy" box should be grayed out and when you hover on the box you should get a popup message something like "You already own  this resource."

Josh said:

I am undecided on this resource. I think it would be neat, but my main concern is academic research - not just personal enlightenment. I have been told all my life that I shouldn't cite a "general" encyclopedia in my academic works. What is everyone's take on this? I certainly feel that the ISBE and AYBD are worthy resources for academic work. What about the Encyclopedia Britannica?

Josh,

I don't know what level your research is about, but I wouldn't cite Britannica for anything I would submit for publication (unless it's to introduce a topic that will be unfamiliar to your target audience), and I probably wouldn't cite the other works you mentioned, either, unless the publication is for a lay audience.

Nevertheless, I am also in the same boat as you are. I'd love to have it, but have must concentrate my resources on my specific academic field.

Just to be clear, should the hover tooltip say "You already own this resource" or "You have already pre-ordered this product"? 

Ben Amundgaard said:

Mark said:

hank you, except I went to the product page and did NOT see it grayed out despite the fact that I never cancelled. 

That's bizarre. I looked at your account and you definitely own the collection.

Mark said:

So was it possible I was on the wrong product page?

Here is the product page https://www.logos.com/product/55228/encyclopaedia-britannica-collection

If you are still having problems, can you give customer service a call? I can't see anything on my end that would cause the box not to be greyed out.

Thanks again, Ben.  That link is the NOET link and it is grayed out.  I cannot reproduce the page I was on before.  Exactly the same, but it was not the NOET page and the picture was different.  But it was not the $100 community price page either.  It was clearly the $199 offer and it was not grayed out.  At any rate, you have helped.  Thanks

I'm glad to see this product getting straightened out and now about to be released for those who have patiently awaited it. If I recall correctly, I ordered it way-back-when for $99, but it seemed to be less than I had anticipated and there was a lot of confusion about what was coming, so I cancelled that original community price order just before it was released.

I had forgotten about Britannica, saw this thread as I was on the forums investigating Logos 7 and Logos Now, and on a lark pre-ordered it for $199. I'm back on the fence about it, trying to decide if it's worth $200 to me. I'm afraid I may totter back off.

Thanks, Brian. It's not something I would feel right asking for. I got cold feet and cancelled it before it was released, and, again, this is what my rapidly-aging memory is saying. I don't remember whether shipping had been announced, though I think it had. At any rate, I was unsure about the product as it was then.

I think Logos has done right with you guys who hung in there with them.

Brian Losabia said:

Hi Bill, If you got in at the original pre-order price of $99 and did a refund, I think that you can call sales/customer support to get reinstated at your original price.  Here's what went out in an email last October:

[quote]

Here are your options:

1. Keep your Compton’s Encyclopedia and wait for the new Encyclopedia Britannica to be created. When the new Encyclopedia Britannica is complete, it will automatically download to your software—at no additional cost.
2. Return your Compton’s Encyclopedia. When the new Encyclopedia Britannica is on Pre-Pub, you can pre-order it. You’ll get both encyclopedias when they’re finished and won't be charged until then. We’d like to honor the Pre-Pub price you paid when ordering the original product. To take advantage of this, please call us at 800-875-6467 or email cs@logos.com when placing your order.
3. Request a refund. If you’d like a refund, we’re happy to provide one. The 30-day return window won't start until we’ve delivered the full product, so please take the time to decide whether the product is right for you.

We’re sincerely sorry for this mistake and the confusion it caused. If you have any further questions or concerns, please give us a call at 800-875-6467 or send an email to cs@logos.com.

Hope this helps!

[edit]: I misunderstood your post, and thought that you did receive the first product.  I'm not sure if they'll be able to reinstate your original pre-pub price if you cancelled it before the product shipped.

Brian, to update my previous response to your post: I did some searching this morning and found my cancellation notice from Faithlife just before Noet Britannica was released, a post from Phil last October replying that those who had canceled their prepub order could have their original order restored, and my email to the salesperson handling my account that that be done. I never heard back and forgot about it.

I decided to give it another try, sending an email to customer service with emails and a link to Phil's post. We'll see if anything comes of it.

Frankly, I'm still trying to understand what exactly will be in this release compared to the Encyclopedia Britannica Ultimate Edition DVD. I understand the value of Logos tagging and am willing to pay $100 for it, but I don't think I will go $200.

Edit: Well, I guess I'll find out what's in this. I just received a pre-pub order from Noet with my original order restored. I appreciate Faithlife's doing this.

That's a great help, Denise. I appreciate your sharing that. Thanks.

Denise said:

- The DVD full version was a series of DVDs you inserted per the alphabet (someone can clarify)

The Britannica 2013 Ultimate comes on one DVD. The Kitchen Sink install option puts all on the HD including 3 encyclopedias, interactive tutorials (language, math, ect), dictionaries, thesaurus, atlas, . . .    A little under 5 gig on the HD.

Robert Harner said:

Denise said:

- The DVD full version was a series of DVDs you inserted per the alphabet (someone can clarify)

The Britannica 2013 Ultimate comes on one DVD. The Kitchen Sink install option puts all on the HD including 3 encyclopedias, interactive tutorials (language, math, ect), dictionaries, thesaurus, atlas, . . .    A little under 5 gig on the HD.

That's interesting. I suspect the Noet version will compare favorably content-wise, not to mention the integration with Logos.

Uhm 83000? 80,000 or 99,000 plus.... Hmmm....

Check out the logos store. The release date has finally been posted hooray!

What are your feelings about this?  Is it worth the investment?  Just wondering what everyone is thinking.

While NOT COMPLETE this is an important work and while worth having. When you have an article from Britannica you can be sure it is well researched and of the highest quality. Wikipedia is good and fairly reliable but there is occasional miss information in it. Now WIKIPEDIA is improved all the time but there are people who have nothing better to do than mess up things or believe in things so strongly as to wish to make an article conform to their prejudices now again these things usually get repaired quickly it can take awhile.

-Dan 

Dan Francis said:

While NOT COMPLETE this is an important work and while worth having. When you have an article from Britannica you can be sure it is well researched and of the highest quality. Wikipedia is good and fairly reliable but there is occasional miss information in it. Now WIKIPEDIA is improved all the time but there are people who have nothing better to do than mess up things or believe in things so strongly as to wish to make an article conform to their prejudices now again these things usually get repaired quickly it can take awhile.

-Dan 

And of course, we're talking less than 100 hours or 6,000 minutes (if you only have an egg timer available, turn it 2,000 times).

As I understand it, Bellingham has alerted the residents (but not the coal shipper) to not be alarmed with dimming lights, as Britannica begins shipping from Lexham City Central.

Ben Amundgaard said:

Hi all,

Over the past week or so, we've had a few people test the EBNE resource to make sure we had set accurate expectations about the product. In light of their feedback, I think it's worth making a few clarifying comments to ensure that everyone knows what they are getting and has accurate expectations.

In the wake of the fallout from the initial product we shipped, EB offered to give us an additional set of articles to make a product that better met our customer's original expectations. EB offered the following:

1. Every article under 1,200 words (which is ~81,000). For this group, we took the whole lot.
2. A select number of articles over 1,200 words (there are over 2,600 articles total in this category, we were able to get ~550).

In total, we ended up including a majority of EB's total article count (in addition to the initial Compton's articles).

We tried to be clear in the various forum posts that the additional articles we were creating would be a subset of the complete Encyclopedia Britannica. I've looked back at some of the posts and it looks like we did a fairly good job at that. That said, I do have a concern that we might have not been clear enough about what that subset would be.

As I said, we were able to license ~550 of the articles above 1,200 words (I've attached an Excel file listing these articles and their respective word counts). This led to some strange gaps. For example, we were able to include articles on WWI, WWI, Ancient Egypt, and Ancient Rome, but didn't have the option to include articles on Martin Luther or C.S. Lewis.

That said, paired with Compton's you will have fairly comprehensive coverage on one level or another.

A second issue I'd like to clarify regards the media portion of the resource. Many of the quotes referenced in Denise's post above come from statements made before we shipped the initial product. After having heard feedback from those who reviewed the media, I'm afraid that not all of it lives up to the claim of 'hi res'. Some of it is great, some of it not-so-great. There's not much we can do about the quality of the media as we have the best quality that EBNE has to offer. That said, our initial communication definitely oversold the media and I want to reset everyone's expectations.

Finally, a question was raised about the Timeline. As with all our resources, dates within the resources link out to the timeline. However, not every event listed in a resource is added to the timeline (this is the case for resources other than EBNE). This means that while you can jump from the resource to the timeline and from the timeline to many other resources, you can't necessarily jump from every resource to every other resource by way of the timeline. I'm concerned that the way we talked about the timeline on the product page and in other copy indicated that every event from EB would be added to the timeline so that you could go to the EBNE from any other resource by way of the timeline. That isn't the way the timeline feature will work with EBNE.

I still think this is a great resource that will add value to your library. I just want to make sure that you know what you're getting so that you have accurate expectations.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Ben, thanks for clarifying and also to your fellow Logos employees for working on such a massive, challenging project. It still sounds like EBNE will offer excellent value along with Compton's. Overall, I'm initially impressed with the coverage of the 578 articles that you attached to your post, the top two being well over 100,000 words and many more being in the 1,000s and 10,000s of words. They seem well suited for Noet.

By the way, according to Microsoft Word, your post is 587 words or 1,174 words if doubled (just under 1,200). That helps give a sense for the upper limit on the ~81,000 articles. (I quoted your post for illustrative purposes, also in case you substantially edit it.)

Ben,

when you say you "didn't have the option to include articles on Martin Luther or C.S. Lewis.", what does this mean?

I jumped on this very late and now feel like pulling the plug because it won't have articles on significant Christian historic figures or events?