Berkshire Encyclopedias online free

September 25, 2007 1:36 PM

Berkshire Publishing has made available the full-text of some quality but little known reference works: Berkshire Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction (1-vol), Global Perspectives on the United States (1-vol), Berkshire Encyclopedia of World Sport (4-vol), Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History (5-vol), Berkshire Encyclopedia of Extreme Sports.
posted by stbalbach (10 comments total)

I'm pretty sure this is promotional and won't last forever but there is no login, the material is pretty good. The essay "This Fleeting World" about World History is worthwhile.
posted by stbalbach at 1:40 PM on September 25, 2007

Yeah, it says on the home page "We’re providing access to the complete volumes for this limited introductory period to demonstrate the range and quality of Berkshire’s reference publications on global topics." But damn, it's pretty good while it lasts.
posted by slogger at 1:47 PM on September 25, 2007

The extreme sports encyclopedia is kind of interesting. They have an entry labeled "Ultrarunning," but it only talks about one race-The Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile-which is certainly worth writing about, but a very limited introduction to a sport that has hundreds of races at a bunch of different recognized distances, all over the world.
posted by OmieWise at 1:48 PM on September 25, 2007

I get prompted for a login.
posted by zsazsa at 1:57 PM on September 25, 2007

Now I don't! Strange.
posted by zsazsa at 2:02 PM on September 25, 2007

Asks for a login? Perhaps geographically restricted? (I'm not in the US)
posted by jazzido at 2:29 PM on September 25, 2007

New Zealand here, getting in fine. Good link, thanks. (I was a bit put off when the first article I read contained an egregious error, but on further reading it looks pretty good).
posted by Infinite Jest at 3:07 PM on September 25, 2007

What does this have to do with the Berkshire Hunt?
posted by Sk4n at 3:15 PM on September 25, 2007

The HCI text required a login, the World History text didn't when I tried to reach them from the US.
posted by ardgedee at 3:51 PM on September 25, 2007

The HCI one asked me for a login the first time too, but then it didn't. Maybe there's a maximum number of concurrent users or something, that it keeps hitting? I didn't have trouble on the others.

The double-column format is a bit obnoxious to read on a small display, but there are worse formats.
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:48 PM on September 25, 2007