ENCYCLOPEDIA DESCRPTION: The Canadian Encyclopedia plays an essential role in providing Canadians and others with accurate, updated information about our people and country. This has been the case even as the Encyclopediahas made the transition from print to CD-ROM, to its present online format. The first edition, led by Publisher Mel Hurtig and Editor-in-Chief James Marsh, was accurately described by Hurtig as “the biggest publishing project in Canadian history.” It carried close to three million words in three separate volumes, featured more than 2,500 contributors and included more than 9,000 articles. It was an immediate, impressive success: the already-ambitious original print run of 154,000 copies had to be increased to 463,500 copies to meet demand. A second edition in 1988 included 500,000 new words; two years later, a five-volume Junior Encyclopedia was published. In 1991, Toronto-based publisher McClelland & Stewart acquired the Encyclopedia and eight years later, Avie Bennett, the M&S chair and prominent philanthropist, transferred ownership to the Historica Foundation, of which he was also chair. (The Foundation was one of the forerunners of the current organization operating the Encyclopedia, now known as Historica Canada.) In 2003, the Encyclopedia incorporated the content of the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, which included some 3,000 articles and 500 illustrations.
Today, the number of articles in the Encyclopedia – more than 19,500 bilingual – is roughly four times the original total and growing (about 60 articles are revised or created every month). The list of more than 5,000 contributors includes David Suzuki, Margaret Atwood, Piers Handling, Daniel Latouche, the late Pierre Berton and Marc Laurendeau.