Americana is international in scope and is known for its detailed coverage of American and Canadian geography and history.

[1] Written by 6,500 contributors, the Encyclopedia Americana includes over 9,000 bibliographies, 150,000 cross-references, 1,000+ tables, 1,200 maps, and almost 4,500 black-and-white line art and color images.

This work, like the print set from which it is derived, is designed for high school and first-year college students along with public library users.

also includes the La Nueva Enciclopedia Cumbre, a Spanish-language general encyclopedia for students in middle through high school.

However, as work on the new encyclopedia progressed, Lieber sought and added original articles by leading U.S. writers and intellectuals of the day.

United States Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, for instance, contributed more than 120 pages of legal material to the 1st edition.

Hence, when the Americana began appearing some 165 years ago, it represented a hybrid of 2 cultures, German and American.

In 1918–20, the Americana Corporation published a new, International, 30-volume edition, with George Edwin Rines continuing as editor-in-chief.

Telemarketing and third-party distribution of Encyclopedia Americana through Grolier's Lexicon Publications subsidiary added to sales volumes in the 1970s.

Over the next few years, the product was augmented with additional features, functions, supplementary references, Internet links, and a current events journal.

A redesigned interface and partly re-engineered product, featuring enhanced search capabilities and a first-ever ADA-compliant, text-only version for users with disabilities, was presented in 2002.

[16] Following the acquisition, Americana became part of a suite of educational resources, with those resources including The New Book of Knowledge, The New Book of Popular Science, America the Beautiful, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, Amazing Animals of the World, and Lands and People.

also includes the La Nueva Enciclopedia Cumbre, a Spanish-language general encyclopedia for students in middle through high school.

[5] Staff reductions as a means of controlling costs also followed soon thereafter, even while an effort was made to augment the sales force.

Cuts occurred every year between 2000 and 2007, leaving a much-depleted workforce to carry out the duties of maintaining a large encyclopedia database.