• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
• /
• v.46 no.2
• /
• pp.5-28
• /
• 2012

Great Books of the Western World(GBWW) is a series of books published in 1952 by Encyclopaedia Britannica to present the famous works in 54 volumes. The series is now in its second edition and contains 60 volumes. A syntopicon compiled by M. Adler is a two-volume index, published as volumes 2 and 3 of GBWW. The syntopicon was coined specifically for this undertaking, which means a collection of topics. Syntopicon lists, under each idea, is where every occurrence of the concept can be located in the collection's famous works. This study aims to analyze the structure and utility of topic index, syntopicon in GBWW. The syntopicon consists of 102 chapters on the 102 ideas. Each chapter is broken down into five distinct sections: the introduction, an outline of topics, references, cross-references, and additional readings. The syntopicon can serve as a reference book, as a selection tool of book to be read, instrument of liberal education, instrument of discovery and research, syntopical reading of other reading material, development tool of convergent education, and analysis tool of works.