Encyclopedia Feature

Between 2003 and 2005 CPM was responsible for project managing the first ever English-language version of the Benezit Dictionary of Artists on behalf of Éditions Gründ, Paris. This extensive encyclopedia, used primarily by museums, galleries and auction houses, gives biographical information about painters, sculptors, designers and engravers from antiquity to the present day. The encyclopedia comprises 14 volumes and has over 20,000 pages, with more than 170,000 entries.

This mammoth project saw us commissioning and managing over 50 translators to convert the existing text from French to English, more than 25 copy-editors to polish the translations, plus scores of subject specialists who wrote thousands of new entries and checked, updated and improved the existing ones. The entire job was completed using a specially created software program that CPM helped to test right at the beginning of the project, to ensure that glitches were ironed out before the 'real' work began. Entries were extracted from the Benezit database in batches to be worked on by our freelancers, then fed back into the database when the work was complete. Not only did our project editors have to deal with the usual day-to-day project management, but also they had to be the first line of IT support for more than 100 suppliers who were all new to this way of working.

It is one of the projects that we are most proud of, because of the sheer size of the task and our ability to complete it successfully, adding real value to the finished edition. The English version of Benezit is widely regarded as the most up-to-date reference resource in this field, and capable of meeting a much wider audience than ever before.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you once again for your valuable contribution to this monumental project. Without the hard work of you and your excellent team, these fourteen volumes may never have seen the light of day. To reach such a high level of quality while keeping to a tight budget and deadline is quite some achievement. Please rest assured that we will warmly recommend your services to our colleagues in the trade.
Alain and Antoine Gründ, Chairman and Director of New Technologies, Éditions Gründ

'The standard biographical listing of artists, outdoing similar resources in both size and scope'
Library Journal, June 2006 (*Starred Review)

'One of the art world's more important dictionaries'
ARTnews, Summer 2006

'The book of first (and last!) resort'
Choice Magazine, February 2007

'The largest up-to-date compilation of artist biographical information in print'
Art Libraries Journal (ARLIS UK & Ireland), March 2007

'The classic and seminal reference publication'
Art Documentation, volume 6, n° 1, 2007