History of the Encyclopædia Britannica the criteria by which the articles were sorted were not obvious even to scholars, despite Dr. Adler's claims that the sorting followed naturally from the "Propædia's" outline of all knowledge. In 1985, the "Britannica" responded to reader requests by restoring the index as a two-volume set. The number of topics indexed by the "Britannica" has fluctuated from 500,000 (1985, the same as in 1954) to 400,000 (1989,1991) to 700,000 in the current 2007 print version. Presumably, this recent increase reflects the introduction of efficient electronic indexing, since the size of the encyclopedia has remained nearly constant at approximately 40 million
Otto's encyclopedia the original work, thus preserving the exact look and feel of Otto's encyclopedias. "Otto's encyclopedia" demonstrated the progress of Czech society and greatly supported its rising national identity. Even today, it is a good source of information, mainly on historical subjects. Derek Sayer in his book says that "But it is Ottův slovník naučný that remains the greatest of Czech works of reference, unsurpassed by anything published since. In its time it was one of the largest encyclopedias in the world, second in the number of its entries and illustrations perhaps only to the "Encyclopædia Britannica"." Otto's encyclopedia Otto's encyclopedia