BKOXFAEN.RVW   971109

"Oxford Family Encyclopedia", George Philip Limited, 1997,
0-19-521367-X, U$45.00
%A   George Philip Limited
%C   198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY   10016
%D   1997
%E   Steve Luck
%G   0-19-521367-X
%I   Oxford University Press
%O   U$45.00 cjp@oup-usa.org +1-212-726-6108
%P   762
%T   "Oxford Family Encyclopedia"

An encyclopedia, even one contained in a single volume, is a massive
work.  A review of it is necessarily incomplete and selective.  One
browses random entries, and even the choice of articles touched on is
biased by the reviewer's interests or fields of study.  It is, of
course, impossible to "fact-check" the entire work.  However, enough
with the excuses, and on with the review.

Choice of subjects to cover is always a major problem in designing a
reference work.  The choice here seems to be to cover as many topics
as possible, by shortening individual articles.  The vast majority of
entries are no more than a paragraph: many are a single sentence. 
Common terms aren't included: after all, this is an encyclopedia
rather than a dictionary.  Entries tend towards the modern.  The
recent American singer Madonna gets an entry, a large in column
picture, and a large caption.  The turn of the century physician/poet
John McCrae isn't included.  (The contemporary Madonna, on the basis
of prior positioning, must also be considered more important than the
Madonnas of art and religion.)  There is also a subtle, but quite
definite, United States bias both as to choice of topics covered, and
the writing itself (which appears odd given that copyright is held by
a British firm).

I found the ordering, done as though spaces did not exist, difficult
to get used to.  "Easter" comes before "Easter Island" which comes
before "Eastern Cape," all naturally enough, but "Eastern Cape" and
"Eastern Orthodox Church" come before "Easter Rising," which itself
comes before "East India Company."

The book is quite heavily illustrated, with scientific graphics
predominating.  In many cases, though, the "cutaway" or otherwise
explanatory drawings are quite difficult to follow, sometimes even
when the captions are studied closely.

Individual articles in the encyclopedia are very concise, and bits and
pieces of the topic or story have to be gathered across the whole
collection of articles.  In trying to research the Boer War (or the
Second War of Freedom, depending upon whose side you're on), I had to
find entries for Afrikaans, Afrikaner, Bantu, Boer, Boer Wars (see
South African Wars), Cape Province, Dutch, Dutch East India Company
(see East India Company), Eastern Cape, East India Company, Free
State, Great Trek, Huguenots, Kimberley, Netherlands, Orange Free
State, South Africa (see country feature), South African Wars,
Transvaal, Xhosa, Zulu, and Zulu War.  This work is definitely a
candidate for a CD-ROM with a cross reference feature.  Some work will
have to be done on the cross references first: terms mentioned in the
articles that have their own entries in the encyclopedia are sometimes
printed in upper case letters (indicating that a reference exists) and
sometimes are not.  In any case, tracing down the cross references,
and even related topics that are not referenced, is necessary in order
to attempt to gain a complete picture.

Even having pursued all of these various topics, some aspects of the
story are incomplete.  (How did the Dutch come to have a colony at the
southern tip of Africa?)  In addition, many of the entries contradict
each other.  Page 744 implies that Bantu refers to a racial or
population grouping, while page 66 states that it is a group of
languages.  Pages 129 and 295 state that the Boers fled from the
British and founded Transvaal, while page 744 says that Transvaal
requested British protection prior to the Boer War.  The date of the
Great Trek is variously listed as 1835 (page 129), 1836 (page 267 and
677), and 1835-40 (page 295).  One of the reasons for the Boer War is
given as the discovery of diamonds, and page 625 implies that this
happened after Transvaal gained independence in 1877, while page 373
says that diamonds were discovered prior to 1871, and page 129 states
that it was in 1867.

I was very disappointed in the handling of technology.  The definition
of a computer virus is flatly wrong, referring to "[p]art of a
computer program," and disruptive or corrupting software, while saying
nothing about reproduction and spread.  The entry for computer network
is mostly correct, but the illustration (with a longer caption),
apparently trying to explain the carrier sense multiple access with
collision detection (CSMA/CD) scheme, talks about colliding data
packets producing an "electronic shock wave."  Those who operate time
sharing systems will be surprised to note that electronic mail is only
available to those on networks, while text based users might be
interested in the fact that you can send word processing files via
email.  The explanation of multiplexing of telephone voice
conversations over digital lines is completely misleading in its
implication that the technology relies on short sampling times.  The
illustration of bar code technology states that light is scattered by
white lines and absorbed by black lines.  It then refers to reflected
light (presumably from the white lines) in contradiction to the
illustration for compact disk technology, which refers to scattered
light and reflected light.  The bar code explanation also states that
a comparison of relative (apparent) width does not have to take curved
surfaces into account.

The last sixteen pages of the book are a "ready reference."  At first
reading this appears to be a wealth of interesting data.  Further
study, however, reveals that while it might be handy for winning
trivia contests, its real usefulness is scant.  (Again, some
information is missing.  The chart of gemstones fails to explain why
each month has two birthstones.)

For quick lookups, or casual browsing, a single volume encyclopedia
probably makes more sense than a multi-volume monster.  There is a
wealth of information available in this work for the satisfaction of
idle curiosity.  The number of errors that I was able to find in such
short acquaintance, however, seems to indicate that this is not a book
you can really rely on.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997   BKOXFAEN.RVW   971109