The Oregon Encyclopedia

The Oregon Encyclopedia of History and Culture is a collaborative encyclopedia, under development, focused on the history of the U.S. state of Oregon. The encyclopedia is a project of Portland State University's History Department and the Oregon Historical Society. It has drawn support from Oregon Cultural Trust partners Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Council for the Humanities, Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission, and the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office.^[1]

It was announced on February 14, 2008, Oregon's 149th birthday. The project was initially launched as an online publication, with plans to eventually publish it in book form.^[2] The project originally aimed to produce about 3,000 articles;^[3] as of May 2009, it had a total of about 250,^[4] with a number of other articles still in the editing process.

The encyclopedia's development director, Sherry Manning, estimated the cost would be between $1 million and $2 million.^[3] A few days before the announcement date, over $175,000 had been raised and another $500,000 was pending.^[5]

One of the project's three editors, Bill Lang, a professor of history at Portland State University, said one goal is to produce an online encyclopedia of Oregon's history "deep into the future." Lang also said the Oregon Encyclopedia will be like a traditional encyclopedia based on verified facts, but with "stuff no one knows about. Yet." Lang contrasted the project with Wikipedia, which he suggested was not based on verified facts.^[5]

References

1. ^ "Oregon Encyclopedia Launch Event" (Press release). The Oregon Encyclopedia. February 14, 2008. http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/content/oregon_encyclopedia/. Retrieved 2008-02-15. 
2. ^ Crombie, Noelle (February 13, 2008). "Historians launch first-ever encyclopedia of Oregon". The Oregonian. http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2008/02/historians_launch_firstever_en.html. Retrieved 2008-02-15. 
3. ^ ^{a b} Muldoon, Katy (February 14, 2008). "Call it Oregon-pedia". The Oregonian. http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1214420110248550.xml&coll=7. Retrieved 2010-11-20. 
4. ^ Miller, David (May 8, 2009). "Encyclopedic Ambitions". Think Out Loud. Oregon Public Broadcasting. http://opb.org/thinkoutloud/shows/encyclopedic-ambitions/. 
5. ^ ^{a b} Mark Baker (February 10, 2008). "You could be a part of the state's online encyclopedia". The Register-Guard. http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=60149&sid=39&fid=1. Retrieved 2008-02-16. 

External links

• Official website