Kunnskapsforlaget

Kunnskapsforlaget is a Norwegian publishing company based in Oslo that concentrates on encyclopedias, encyclopedic books, textbooks, and dictionaries. The company, created in 1975, is owned by Gyldendal Norsk Forlag and Aschehoug (50% each).

Kunnskapsforlaget's best-known product is Store norske leksikon (SNL), the only remaining Norwegian paper encyclopedia. The decline in sales of paper-based encyclopedias around the turn of the century hit Kunnskapsforlaget hard, but a fourth edition of SNL was finally secured by a grant of NOK 10 million from the Fritt Ord foundation in 2003. The fourth edition was completed i 2005, and consists of 16 volumes, a total of 12,000 pages and 280,000 entries. SNL has been available online since 2000 and has several hundred thousand subscribers (private and institutional). The number of online articles is about 150,000.

Apart from encyclopaedias, Kunnskapsforlaget's most important products are dictionaries. Serving the Norwegian market, they publish a multitude of bilingual dictionaries, and some monolingual Norwegian dictionaries and thesauruses. Their main second language is English (for which they (as at 2009) offer 13 different paper dictionaries). Other languages: Swedish, Finnish, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Persian, Portuguese, Greek, Polish, Chinese. In 2004 they opened the online dictionary site Ordnett. Originally with only a few dictionaries (Norwegian and English) it now has 28 dictionaries in five languages (Norwegian, English, German, French, Spanish). The business model is annual subscriptions, although they offer a large, free Norwegian dictionary (Norsk Ordbok).