European and North American Encyclopedia Conference

Organised by the Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography, the second European and North American Encyclopedia Conference was held from 6 to 8 October 2022 in Zagreb. The first European Encyclopedia Conference was held in Brussels in 2019, organised by the Great Norwegian Encyclopedia, the European Parliamentary Research Service, and the Mission of Norway to the EU.

In Zagreb, representatives of general encyclopedias from Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Norway, Slovakia, and Sweden discussed the role of encyclopedias in providing reliable and verified information about culture, art, science, and society as well as in preserving national and cultural identity.

By fulfilling their basic goal - offering access to reliable and verified information of general interest in one's native language - encyclopedias can play an important role in combating the spread of disinformation, misinformation, and fake news. This is why the exchange of experiences about the current status and operating models of national encyclopedias is exceptionally important, especially when the constantly growing amount of freely accessible information from various sources is taken into account. Introductory talks were given by Bruno Kragić, director general of the Miroslav Krleža Institute and chief editor of the Croatian Encyclopedia, Filip Hameršak, director of the Institute, and Naja Bentzen, senior policy analyst at the European Parliament Liaison Office in Washington DC. The conference participants then presented their national encyclopedia projects and exchanged experiences about working in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic and armed conflicts as well as the many challenges faced by encyclopedia publishers in the digital era, particularly regarding the visibility and findability of encyclopedia contents when using internet search engines. In addition, a representative of the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine addressed the participants virtually.

Striving to define potential areas of cooperation, which would in the near future enable the implementation of inter-institutional projects, exchange of encyclopedia content, and joint activities with regard to the recognisability and evaluation of encyclopedias in a European context, an agreement was reached to establish the European Encyclopedia Network under the leadership of Bruno Kragić.

In 2023 the Institutes’s journal Studia lexicographica published a section dedicated to the conference, which is available at studialexicographica.lzmk.hr.