Den Store Danske Encyklopædi (The Great Danish Encyclopedia) is the most comprehensive contemporary Danish language encyclopedia. The 20 volumes of the encyclopedia were published successively between 1994 and 2001; a one-volume supplement was published in 2002 and two index volumes in 2003. The work comprises 115,000 articles, ranging in size from single-line cross references to the 130-page entry Danmark (Denmark). The articles were written by a staff of about 4,000 academic experts led by editor-in-chief Jørn Lund. Articles longer than a few dozen lines are signed by their authors. Many articles are illustrated.

The online version of the encyclopedia was released February 26, 2009 to be free-of-charge.

The encyclopedia was published by Danmarks Nationalleksikon A/S (Denmark's National Encyclopedia), a subsidiary of Denmark's grand old publishing house Gyldendal that was set up for the purpose. The project was inspired by the almost contemporary Swedish Nationalencyklopedin; it received financial support from the Augustinus Foundation and was backed by a governmental inflation guarantee on pre-paid subscriptions. Eventually about 35,000 copies were sold.

The text of the paper encyclopedia was also published, but without illustrations, on CD-ROMs for Microsoft Windows in 2004 and for Mac OS in 2005. In January 2006, it was announced that a full online edition of the encyclopedia was expected to be available in later 2006 on a subscription basis, with the help of a renewed grant from the Augustinus Foundation. In March 2008, the publishing house announced that it failed to get sufficient numbers of subscribers and declared the project a failure.

The CD ROM version of the encyclopedia is likely not to work without an update on never versions of Windows XP/Vista, due to a security fix from Microsoft. ^[1][2]

The free online version was published using wiki software^[3].

[edit] Copyright

The original articles from Den Store Danske Encyclopædi can be used freely as provided it is not distributed or used commercially.^[4]

The new articles (made by the users) can be used freely provided the source is referenced using a deep link.^[5]

Den Store Danske is covered by the Danish copyright law and it belongs to Gyldendal.^[6]

[edit] References

1. ^ Support page
2. ^ theBookseller.com
3. ^ Main page. All pages on Den Store Danske refer to wiki software.
4. ^ Den Store Danske Encyclopædi: Copyright oprindeligeartikler
5. ^ Den Store Danske Encyclopædi: Copyright nye artikler
6. ^ Den Store Danske Encyclopædi: Vilkår og rettigheder

[edit] External links

• Den store Danske