[Summary] The first reference encyclopedias and dictionaries available online stemmed from print versions. Britannica.com was available in December 1999 as the web version of the 32-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica, first for free and then for a fee. The French-language WebEncyclo from Editions Atlas was available at the same time, for free, as well as the Encyclopaedia Universalis, for a fee. The first major online dictionaries also stemmed from print versions, for example the free Merriam-Webster Online launched in 1996, that included the Webster Dictionary, the Webster Thesaurus, and other tools. The French-language “Dictionnaire Universel Francophone en Ligne “ from Hachette was available for free in 1997. The online version of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was available in March 2000 for a fee. Designed directly for the web, the Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique (GDT) was launched in September 2000 in Quebec as the largest free French-English terminology dictionary, and quickly praised by linguists worldwide. *** The first reference encyclopedias and dictionaries available online stemmed from print versions. # Encyclopedias Britannica.com was launched in December 1999 as the digital equivalent of the 32 volumes of the 15th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The website was available for free, as a complement to the print and CD-ROM versions for sale, with a selection of articles from 70 magazines, a guide to the best websites, a selection of books, etc., all searchable through a single search engine. In September 2000, the site was among the top 100 websites in the world. In July 2001, the website, not free anymore, could be searched for a monthly or annual fee. In 2009, Britannica.com opened its website to external contributors, with registration required to write and edit articles. Launched by Editions Atlas in December 1999 and stemming from a print encyclopedia, Webencyclo was the first main French-language online encyclopedia available for free. It was searchable by keyword, topic and media (i.e. maps, links, photos, illustrations). A call for papers invited specialists in a given topic to become external contributors and submit articles in a section called "Webencyclo Contributif". Later on, a free registration was required to use the online encyclopedia. Launched at the same time, the website of the print French-language Encyclopedia Universalis included 28,000 articles by 4,000 contributors, available for an annual subscription fee, with a number of articles available for free. # Dictionaries