April would have been a good time to talk about Shakespeare, it being the month both of his birth and death, but, alas, April’s lease has expired. Fortunately, however, the Bard is never out of season, so for those of you who want to delve into the life and work of the great playwright and poet or read up on him in preparation for summer stock, here goes.

Britannica has an extensive article on Shakespeare that covers his life and work and place in literary history. It also takes up the intriguing question of whether Shakespeare actually wrote his own plays, a hot topic among these days. Principal contributors to the article Shakespeare scholars John Russell Brown, Terence John Bew Spencer, and David Bevington.

We also have a The Encyclopaedia Britannica Guide to Shakespeare, a special multimedia site devoted entirely to Shakespeare and his work. It has additional articles and audio and video clips of performances.

And, of course, this widget that you can put on your own site, which has links to Britannica’s coverage of Shakespeare and related topics.
 
On the Web:

The Shakespeare Authorship Page. These folks believe Shakespeare really wrote Shakespeare.

The Electronic Text Center. Various editions available in digital form. http://etext.virginia.edu/shakespeare

Shakespeare Resource Center. Large collection of links to Shakespeare material around the Web. http://www.bardweb.net/

Folger Shakespeare Library. Washington, D.C.-based center for research on the Bard and his times.

The volume of information on the Web makes it virtually impossible to find anything without the use of Search Engines. Increasingly we are using the search engine for all our information needs, and therefore what we find is getting ever more dependent on how search engines rank their results.

Search engines use various factors to rank their results, but the single most important factor is how many web sites link to a particular page. That is, Search Engines look at each link to a page as a vote of confidence for that page and ranks the most popular pages at the top. This works most of the time, but it has a significant limitation. Once a page climbs towards the top of the list for a specific search, more people find it, and therefore more people are likely to link to that same page. In other words, once a page reaches a high rank, it has a natural tendency to climb higher. Apart from this technical limitation, we also know that when it comes to reliable and useful information, popularity is not always the only or best indicator. If popularity decided truth then we’d still believe that the sun rotates around the earth.

Recognizing that this one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t satisfy everyone’s needs, Google is gradually moving towards “Personalized Search”, where the search results you see for a particular search term are going to be slightly different from what everyone else sees. The first step towards that is a feature called “Google Subscribed Links”. This allows each of us to impose our own preferences and needs on Google’s generic search results. Using this anyone can let Google know of the content providers they trust and Google then makes sure that results from these selected sites would come up on the first page of their results. For example, if you consider Encyclopaedia Britannica as one of your trusted source, all you have to do is to go to this page and click on the “Subscribe” button next to “Encyclopaedia Britannica”. If you don’t have an account on Google then you will have to create one using your existing e-mail address.

Once you subscribe to this feature, any time you search on Google for any topic where Britannica has an article, this will be offered to you as a special search result on the first page of Google results (currently the fourth result on the first page). Since it doesn’t affect the search results in any other way, there is absolutely no harm in keeping it there. So, give it a try and you won’t regret it. Let Google’s search results reflect your personal needs.

Click on this link to add Britannica to your personalized Google results

You might not know it unless you tripped over the news by accident, but April is National Poetry Month in the United States. So before the celebration ends at midnight tonight, let’s tip our hat to that wonderful but under-appreciated form of literature that so enriches the people who choose to make it part of their lives.

One of the great things about streaming video on the Web is that if you can’t make it to poetry readings in person you can see and hear readings at places like Favorite Poem Project. . . . If you’d like to cultivate a love of poetry in your kids but are afraid they’ll just run away from it, try Giggle Poetry, which will meet them more than halfway. . . . Want the latest news from across the poetic world, as it were?  Try the Poetry Foundation and its house organ, Poetry magazine.  If there is any such thing as a poetry portal, these sites are it. . . . If you’d just like to find something to read, check out the Poetry Archives. . . . The Museum of American Poetics seems to have some edgy stuff on its site, and while for me its pages took awhile to load you may decide it’s worth the wait.

Of course Britannica has an extensive article on poetry, which you are welcome to read and link to if you have a Web site.  And if your interest in the form extends beyond April, or you simply want to add some class and culture to your site, you can download and post the widget above, which has a collection of Britannica articles on poetry and poets.

Today we officially announced the Britannica WebShare program.  Regular visitors to this site know all about it, but here’s the press release all the same.

Britannica Opens Site for Free Access to Web Publishers, Linking

CHICAGO, April 29, 2008—Bloggers, webmasters, online journalists and anyone else who publishes regularly on the Internet can now get free subscriptions to Britannica Online (www.britannica.com).

Anyone interested in participating in Britannica’s new WebShare initiative can apply for a free subscription at http://signup.eb.com or get more information at http://britannicanet.com.

The free subscriptions are part of Britannica’s effort to increase awareness and use of its extensive information resources, which include articles written by many top scholars, some of them Nobel laureates.

“It’s good business for us and a benefit to people who publish on the Net,” said Britannica president Jorge Cauz. “The level of professionalism among Web publishers has really improved, and we want to recognize that by giving access to the people who are shaping the conversations about the issues of the day. Britannica belongs in the middle of those conversations.”

In addition to the free subscriptions, Web publishers can also bring the value of Britannica’s content to their own sites by linking to any articles they find relevant to the topics they’re writing about.

Access to much of the site, including full-text entries from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, normally requires a paid subscription. There’s an exception to that rule, however: When a Web site links to a Britannica article Web surfers who click on that link get the article in its entirety.

“This means that when you’re writing something for the Web, whether it’s about Tibet, the U.S. presidential election, global warming or the Peace of Westphalia, you can give your readers additional information about the topic just by pointing them to the appropriate Britannica articles,” said Cauz. “If an article normally requires a subscription to access it, your readers will get it anyway, even if they’re not subscribers.

“Bloggers, journalists, and Web sites link all the time, of course, but they may not realize they have the option of pointing to Britannica articles. So let me be clear: they do.”

Cauz said that Web publishers can link to as many Britannica articles as they like.

The company also plans to provide special tools, such as widgets and clusters of topical articles related to current events that will make it easy for online publishers to find and use Britannica material on their sites.

The public is also invited to follow Britannica’s Twitter stream, a daily “tweet” featuring a link to a Britannica article pertinent to the news of the day. This feature, at http://twitter.com/EBWebshare, requires a free account.

Additional features designed to facilitate the use of Britannica content around the Web will be introduced in the months ahead.

Interested writers and publishers can go to http://britannicanet.com for more. The site has instructions, a registration form, currently available topic clusters, eligibility guidelines, and a Britannica-written blog to keep visitors up to date on the program and how it is being used. The social media version of this release is available at http://britannicanet.com/?page_id=34.

About Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. is a leader in reference and education publishing whose products can be found in many media, from the Internet to cell phones to books. A pioneer in electronic publishing since the early 1980s, the company also still publishes the 32-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica, along with services such as Britannica Online School Edition and new printed products, which are available online at http://store.britannica.com. The company makes its headquarters in Chicago.

# # #

Contact:
Tom Panelas
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
312-347-7309
tpanelas@eb.com

Shel Holtz
Holtz Communication + Technology
415-367-3820
shel@holtz.com

Earth Day was Tuesday, but according to our friend and blogger Gregory McNamee, it’s still Earth Day Week, which I take to mean we’re still allowed to discuss the condition of the planet we live on.  Before that license expires, I invite you to read this article on global warming (also Earth Day itself) and grab this widget with Britannica articles on the environment for your own site if your interest in the subject extends beyond this week. 

Want more? In what he calls an Earth Week Coda to his previous post, Greg calls attention to the Times of London’s list of “The Top 50 Eco Blogs.”

Now for something completely different:

This has nothing to do with the WebShare program, though it’s pretty cool and, as it happens, Michael Wesch, who produced it along with his students at Kansas State University, is a Britannica advisor.

What do you make of it all?

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Tibet is an “historic region and autonomous region of China that is often called ‘the roof of the world.’”

A picturesque description, but how did Tibet come to be in the middle of a firestorm of controversy over the 2008 Olympics?  And why have Tibetan monks clashed with Chinese security forces in the streets of the capital?

After declaring its independence from China following the Chinese revolution of 1911-12, “Tibet functioned as an independent government until 1951 and defended its frontier against China in occasional fighting as late as 1931,” the encyclopedia goes on to say. “In 1949, however, the ‘liberation’ of Tibet was heralded, and in October 1950 the Chinese invaded eastern Tibet, overwhelming the poorly equipped Tibetan troops. An appeal by the Dalai Lama to the United Nations was denied, and support from India and Britain was not forthcoming. A Tibetan delegation summoned to China in 1951 had to sign a treaty dictated by the conquerors. It professed to guarantee Tibetan autonomy and religion but also allowed the establishment at Lhasa of Chinese civil and military headquarters.”

There is much more to the story, of course, and you can read the entire article or download the above Britannica widget on Tibet to your Web site or blog. It has this article and a number of others, all of which are available to visitors of any site that hosts the widget. While you’re at it consider grabbing the widgets on China, Buddhism, or the Olympics.

At the risk of prattling on endlessly about our widgets, let me add one more thing that may not be obvious: they scale in size—downward if necessary.

Here on our site they look wide because that’s their default size, but you can post them in the narrow side columns of most blogs, and they will adjust to the size of the column.   Here’s an example of one that appears in a Blogger blog, in a side column of average width for those sites. 

In this situation there do seem to be some display problems when the widget is viewed in Internet Explorer 6.  The widget can look chopped in certain environments.  We’re trying to fix the problem.

Thanks to a post on the A-list blog TechCrunch late Friday night, Britannica’s WebShare program is getting a lot of attention this weekend.  We’ve been swamped with requests for free subscriptions, and we’re processing them as quickly as we can.  We do look at each one, so the screening process is not entirely programmatic, but no one should have to wait more than about 24 hours (3-4 business days; please see update below) between applying for a free sub at our registration page and receiving an answer from us. 

The majority of the people who have applied so far, by the way, have qualified and are receiving subscriptions. 

If you have any problems with or questions about your subscription or the registration process, please send us an e-mail about it.  (Update: Please also write to us if you’ve applied for a subscription and haven’t heard back from us in 36 hours a week or longer.)

Many people have noticed and commented on our widgets.  We only have a few posted here right now, but many more are on the way, and we’ll get them up here as quickly as we can.  Please come back.   

NB: One issue I’ve noticed with some of our widgets is that under some circumstances they may not display properly in Internet Explorer 6.  (Okay, “issue” is a euphemism; problem is the right word.).  We’re looking into this and would welcome any reports about your own experience. Thanks.

* Apologies to Clay Shirky.

Update (4/25): I may have overpromised about the 24-hour turnarond.  We’re getting a lot of applications, and since they go through some screening by human beings, it’s taking time.  In general we will try to respond to applicants within two business days, though right now, while we’re getting a surge of applications, it may take a bit longer.  Please be patient; we’ll get to you.  Thanks.

Britannica Widgets are here, and with them you can instantly post an entire cluster of related Encyclopaedia Britannica articles on your blog or Web site.  Just follow the instructions and copy and paste the several lines of code associated with each widget as html into the appropriate place on your site.  Any readers who click on a link will get the entire Britannica article on the subject, even if access to the article normally requires a subscription.  Really. Try it.

So let’s say you have a site about philosophy, or astronomy, or basketball.  Stick one of the widgets below on your site and your readers will instantly have access to Britannica’s coverage of the subject.  And if you haven’t signed up yet for your free subscription to Britannica online, which is available to all Web publishers, please go here.

Go here for more widgets, and please come back because we plan to add many more in the weeks to come. 

I closed my last post by introducing you to the Encyclopaedia Britannica Twitter stream. Some of you may be new to Twitter, or not even heard of it yet, so I thought I’d let you know what it is and why we’re using it to send out links and information.

Our Twitter account is: EBWebShare.

Twitter is a relatively news service that has taken many enthusiastic users of social media by storm. With Twitter, you can send a receive short messages — up to 140 characters. You receive the messages (known as “tweets”) from the people you have chosen to follow. People who opt to follow you will receive the tweets that you send out. You can send and receive over the web or over your mobile phone. The practice — which is at the heart of some other services, like Jaiku and Pownce – has come to be known as “microblogging.”

Because there are so many people “tweeting” to each other these days — often with links to interesting material — we thought it would be both fun and useful to share links and information with anyone who chose to EBWebShare. The daily link will introduce you to a topic that may have been unknown to you. Think of it as a little brain boost.

As always, we’re interested in your thoughts about our use of Twitter — is there something else we can do with our Twitter account that would be helpful? — and about WebShare in general.