Britannica announces new editorial board
The Encyclopædia Britannica made a response to the challenge it faces from Wikipedia last week, getting some publicity for its announcement of the formation of an editorial advisory board. This group of luminaries is supposed to help maintain Britannica's standards "while making sure it remains relevant to the way people use information today."
The announcement was the focus of a detailed article by Eric Ferkenhoff in the Boston Globe, "Venerable encylopedia seeks just the facts". Ferkenhoff painted the move as an effort to reassert authoritative sources of information "in an age when the Internet has loosened the definition of what is factual." The story was also covered more briefly in the Washington Times [1].
As reported by the Globe, the board "will meet twice a year to plot the direction for Britannica and fine-tune its editorial content". The idea of an advisory board is not new, but it had not been in operation at Britannica for over a decade. Wendy Doniger, the only holdover from the previous board, indicated that it last met in 1995, falling out of use shortly after the debut of Britannica's online edition.