I rebuilt the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica into a clean, structured, navigable site:

What it does:

– ~37k articles reconstructed from the original volumes – section-level structure (contents are clickable within articles) – cross-references extracted and linked – contributors indexed and searchable – original volume + page references preserved and shown while reading – links to the original scans for each page – ancillary material included (prefaces, abbreviations, etc.) – topic index reproduced and cross-linked – full-text search with article metadata (length, volume, etc.)

Most of the work was in parsing and reconstruction: headings, multi-page articles, tables, math, languages, footnotes, plates, and all the small edge cases that come up in a work like this.

The goal was to make something that feels like the original, but is actually usable.

I’d especially appreciate feedback on: – search quality – navigation (sections, cross-references) – anything that looks structurally off

Happy to answer questions about the pipeline or data model

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zozbot234 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You might want to add The Reader's Guide to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, PD text available at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74039 and scans at https://archive.org/details/readersguidetoen00londuoft - It would fit naturally with the Ancillary material that includes the topic-based index.

	▲	ahaspel 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It would indeed. I will see about working this in, it's highly pertinent.

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nyc_pizzadev 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Very nice. I actually spent a bit of time browsing a few topics, which is something I rarely do these days!

A few things... when I click an article and try to jump to a new topic, the top search box (labeled "Search titles and full text...") doesn't work. Second, when I first came to the site, I was a bit stuck. It took a bit of time to realize I need to click on "Articles" or even "Topics" to start browsing. Not sure why, maybe I expected the image to let me enter the site somehow...?

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ks2048 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Nice job. How about wikipedia-style links to other articles for topics mentioned within another article?

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logicallee 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Thanks so much for sharing this. It looks fantastic. A couple of questions, if you don't mind: what license are you releasing this under, if any? Is there any way to download it? The reason someone might want to download it is for use as training data.

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zozbot234 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Wikisource has the original scans available in the public domain, and their enriched text under CC-BY-SA: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/EB1911

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ahaspel 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Thanks!

The underlying text (1911 edition) is public domain, but the structured version here — the parsing, reconstruction, and linking — is something I put together for this site. Right now there isn’t a bulk download available. I’m considering exposing structured access (API or dataset) in some form, but haven’t decided exactly how that will work yet.

If you have a specific use case in mind (especially for training), I’d be interested to hear more.

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hallole 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I've wanted to do something like this for The Encyclopédie, a hugely relevant text to the Enlightenment. If you ever get around to adding a rough "How I (generally) Made This" section, that'd be appreciated! Site looks great :)

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logicallee 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Regarding the specific use case, I was thinking this: I had Gemma 4 (a small but highly capable offline model released by Google) make a public domain cc0 encyclopedia of some core science and technology concepts[1]. I thought it was pretty good.

Separately, I've fine-tuned the Gemma 4 model[2], it was very quick (just 90 seconds), so I think it could be interesting to train it to talk like 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.

I would use the entries as training data and train it to talk in the same style. There isn't a specific use case for why, I just think it would be interesting. For example, I could see how it writes about modern concepts in the style of 1911 Britannica.

[1] https://stateofutopia.com/encyclopedia/

[2] To talk like a pirate! https://www.youtube.com/live/WuCxWJhrkIM

	▲	ahaspel 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That’s a fun idea — I can see the appeal of that style. The underlying text is public domain, but the structured version here is something I put together for the site. I haven’t released a bulk dataset yet. If you end up experimenting with it, I’d love to hear how it turns out — and I’m still figuring out what structured access might look like.

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realityfactchex 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Is there any way to download it? The reason someone might want to download it is for use as training data.

Another reason would be to able to keep running/using it even if the main site were to go down for whatever reason eventually; or, to operate a mirror of it, for redundancy (linking back to the original, of course).

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gnerd00 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

legal terms question here also -- several major world economies are operating under very different rules regarding datasets and publication rights. I am in the USA / California.. will there be terms for me, given that I am not a giant deep-pockets FAANG, just a book person ? commercial use terms for "small business" scale ?

	▲	ahaspel 9 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The 1911 text itself is public domain, so anyone is free to use it. What I’ve built here is a structured edition — the parsing, reconstruction, linking, indexing, etc. I haven’t published a formal license for that yet. For casual or small-scale use there’s no issue at all. For bulk use (e.g. dataset / training / redistribution), I’d prefer people get in touch so I can figure out a sensible way to support that.
	▲	dessimus 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		It's been on Project Gutenburg for over 20 years: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13600 They only release books that are in the public domain.
	▲	TremendousJudge 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I guess such an old edition is in the public domain

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Soluod 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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