Having recently received hardback copies of a third multivolume encyclopedia that I have either edited or authored, I sometimes get questions about the process. Frankly, there are not a lot of written resources for academics considering taking on such a project for the first time, but you can count on senior scholars to share their wisdom. For example, I was fortunate enough to be able to discuss my various projects with my friend, Alfred J. Andrea, a master encyclopedist, and co-edit my first encyclopedia with my former dissertation advisor, Florin Curta, a leading scholar of the early Middle Ages. In this, I have been fortunate to have such guidance, and so want to share a bit of what I have learned about the process.

It’s important to note that one’s experience editing (or authoring) such a project can vary quite a bit from project to project. It depends on one’s goals from the outset, your level of commitment, the level of support from the publisher, and whether or not there is a global pandemic that shuts down all the universities and makes many of your contributors sick while you are trying to complete the task (yes, it happened). These variables aside, while fully acknowledging that other encyclopedists may disagree with me on some finer points, there are some general considerations that I feel confident sharing here.

In what is surely one of the least exciting possible blog posts with the smallest possible target audience since I began blogging, I reflect on some of those considerations in encyclopedia editing here. Hopefully, they will be of use to those few brave souls considering taking on such a project.

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