If you're looking for a known item like a book title or a specific newspaper, and you don't find it, ask yourself:
Just looking for a little information about something? Try a historical dictionary. Scarecrow Press / Rowman and Littlefield publishes a series of historical dictionaries for countries, events, concepts and organizations -- e.g. Spain, the Northern Ireland conflict, Zionism, or human rights and humanitarian organizations. For a reasonably complete list, search the Main Catalog for Keyword = historical dictionary scarecrow, and Keyword - historical dictionary rowman.
The wikipedia entry for "Encyclopaedia Britannica" is helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopaedia_Britannica. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Encyclopædia_Britannica for discussion of the American editions.
Editions below are British unless otherwise specified.
The wise searcher will use both "encyclopedia" and "encyclopaedia"
| Edition | Dates | Access |
| 1st | 1768-1771 | Eighteenth Century Collections Online; Reprint; Firestone Library: Non Circulating (Fnc) AE5 .E363 1771a |
| 2nd | 1777-1784 | Eighteenth Century Collections Online |
| 3rd | 1788-1797 | Eighteenth Century Collections Online; Rare Books Off-Site Storage: 0981.325.5 (Contact rbsc@princeton.edu) pirated Dublin edition also in ECCO American edition is Dobson's Encyclopaedia (ECCO and Rare Books Off-Site Storage 0981.326) |
| supplement to 3rd | 1801 | Supplement to Dobson in America's Historical Imprints |
| 4th | 1801-1809 | check Worldcat for libraries that hold this edition (Millar) |
| 5th | 1817 | check Worldcat for libraries that hold this edition (Millar) |
| supplement to 5th | 1816-1824 | check Worldcat for libraries that hold this edition (Napier) |
| 6th | 1820-1823 | RECAP 0981.325.3 |
| supplement to 4th-6th | 1824 | RECAP 0981.325.4 |
| 7th | 1830-1842 | Rutgers Library Annex Storage Facility (Busch) |
| 8th | 1853-1860 | Boston, 1860: RECAP 0981.325.2 |
| 9th | 1875-1889 | New York, 1878-89: RECAP 0981.325.6 |
| 10th, supplement to 9th | 1902-1903 | New York, 1903 (reprint of 9th ed.): http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009665177 [lacks vol. 8] http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007705470 [lacks vol. 9] |
| 11th | 1910-1911 | Firestone AE5 .E36 1910 Scribner Room AE5 .E363 1910 Lewis 0981.325 Rare Books: Reference Collection 0981.325 Internet Archive and see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopædia_Britannica_Eleventh_Edition |
| 12th, supplement to 11th | 1921-1922 | supplemental volumes only: RECAP 0981.325.12 |
| 13th, supplement to 11th | 1926 | Trustee Reading Room Reference (DR) AE5 .E363 1926a supplemental volumes: Firestone AE5 .E363 1926 (also Marquand, RECAP) |
| 14th | 1929-1933 | London, 1936: RECAP 0981.325.14 |
| revised 14th | 1933-1973 |
Chicago, 1971: RECAP AE5 .E363 1971 |
| 15th | 1974-1984 | 2nd version, Chicago 1992: RECAP AE5 .E363 1992 and RECAP AE5 .E363 1990 1st version, Chicago 1974, RECAP AE5 .E363 1974 |
| 1985-present | http://www.search.eb.com/ |
Also useful: Britannica book of the year RECAP AE5 .E364 (1938-2014) plus current year in Trustee Reading Room