Encyclopedia in 20 volumes, Moscow: AST Astrel, 2009. — 800 s. ISBN: 978-5-271-24636-4 (General), ISBN: 978-5-17-060921-5 (Volume 1), The preparation of the "Great Universal Encyclopedia" used the world and domestic experience of encyclopedic book publishing. At the same time, working on the creation of the "Great Universal Encyclopedia", the editorial board proceeded from the fact that in modern conditions of development of information technologies it is necessary to use new approaches to create an encyclopedic product of the 21st century. This encyclopedia was based on the following principles: the maximum number of explained words that a person may encounter in the modern information flow. inclusion in the dictionary of not only modern vocabulary, but also archaic and at the same time currently used words; use of the latest data in the texts of articles ; maximum possible illustration of all articles ; global and objective (non-estimated) nature of articles ; High-quality and accessible to the mass reader