New Canadian Encyclopedia

The New Canadian Encyclopedia Publishing Ltd. was incorporated in 1979, as a wholly-owned division of Hurtig Publishers. It commenced operations on April 1, 1980 with the objective of researching, developing, and producing a New Canadian Encyclopedia by fall, 1985. The Encyclopedia was the brainchild of Mel Hurtig, owner of Hurtig Publishers of Alberta. Mr. Hurtig, a frequent visitor to schools and libraries across the country, was convinced of the need for a contemporary general reference work on Canada to replace "hopelessly out-of-date" reference texts currently in use. In the mid-1970's, Mel Hurtig began to research funding possibilities for such a large publishing undertaking. He approached Canada Council officials and other funding sources, but was eventually successful with his request to the Alberta government's 75th anniversary committee. In 1979, $3.4 million was awarded to the New Canadian Encyclopedia Publishing Ltd. for research and development, and $600,000. to buy free copies for 24,000 libraries and schools in the country and for every diplomatic post abroad. All production costs were absorbed by Hurtig Publishers and defrayed by the sale of the other 80,000 editions in the first printing. A Managing Director, Frank McGuire and an Editor-in-Chief, James Marsh were hired in 1980. Together, they hired the editorial, production, and office staff responsible for overseeing the production of the three-volume Canadian Encyclopedia. The offices of the Canadian Encyclopedia were housed on the University of Alberta campus, and technical support from the University made possible the on-line data entry, storage and retrieval of information, and the computer typesetting of entries through the textform software program. A major subject list in the fields of arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences was drawn up and editorial teams hired to deal with them. Each team consisted of a senior editor and an editor-researcher. The senior editors assembled a ten person national advisory board chaired by Dr. Harry Gunning of the University of Alberta. As well, some 200 consultants or subject specialists from universities, the federal and provincial public service, scientific institutions, and quasi-government institutions like art galleries and museums were contracted to assist the editorial staff in determining subject lists and selecting contributors. The writing of encyclopedia entries was assigned to 2500 contributors. While the majority of the contributors came from academe, they also included such authors as Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, and Peter C. Newman. Contributors were paid a nominal fee, or could accept payment in free copies of the encyclopedia. Consultants and expert readers evaluated all articles prepared for the encyclopedia to ensure authenticity of facts, the fair dealing of controversial issues, and balanced viewpoints. The finished encyclopedia contained some three million words in about 14,000 articles with an additional 1800 illustrations including photographs, maps, diagrams and charts. It was completed and to the public in 1985, while preparations began on preparing a second edition of The Canadian Encyclopedia for publication in 1988. In the words of Harald Bohne, the Director of the University of Toronto Press, The Canadian Encyclopedia is "a major undertaking of national importance not likely to be repeated in this century."