From 1961 to 1976, Malayalam Encyclopaedia functioned as a separate department (Department of Malayalam Encyclopaedia) under the Department of Higher Education, Government of Kerala. In November 1976 it was reconstituted as an autonomous body called the State Institute of Encyclopaedic Publications (SIEP). To ensure the smooth functioning of the Institute a Governing Body was constituted with the Chief Minister as Chairman. In March 1987 the Institute was brought under the control of the Department of Cultural Affairs, keeping its status as an autonomous registered society.
The SIEP is now engaged in the publication of a number of encyclopaedias including Sarvavijnanakosam, a general encyclopaedia in twenty volumes being a compendium of world knowledge, the Viswasahityavijnanakosam (encyclopaedia of world literature) in ten volumes to give an up to date picture of world literature. Fifteen volumes of Sarvavijnanakosam, volumes 1 and 2 of the revised edition of the Sarvavijnanakosam and seven volumes of Viswasahityavijnanakosam have so far been published. In addition to this single-volume encyclopaedias on Environment, Astronomy and Evolution have also been published. Starting June 2008, we have also launched a web edition for our Sarvavijnanakosam; as of now that edition contains the Articles included in volumes 12, 13 and 15 of Sarvavijnanakosam as well as those in the revised editions of the first two volumes of Sarvavijnanakosam.
Click to contribute to the Sarvavijnana Kosam
We can be visited either at http://www.sarvavijnanakosam.gov.in or at http://www.sarva.gov.in. The web edition is available at http://www.mal.sarva.gov.in.
The font conversion, image compression, etc. needed for the web edition are done by Kudumbasree with the technical support from SPACE. The web server space is provided by the IT Mission, Government of Kerala and the website is hosted at the State Data Centre, Trivandrum.
SIEP invites ideas and projects from our well-wishers all over the world on how to make our contributions more useful and relevant; you can e-mail your responses to sarvavijnanakosam@yahoo.com