In an acknowledgment of the realities of the digital age — and of competition from the Web site Wikipedia — Encyclopaedia Britannica will focus primarily on its online encyclopedias and educational curriculum for schools. The last print version is the 32-volume 2010 edition, which weighs 129 pounds and includes new entries on global warming and the Human Genome Project.
“It’s a rite of passage in this new era,” Jorge Cauz, the president of Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., a company based in Chicago, said in an interview. “Some people will feel sad about it and nostalgic about it. But we have a better tool now. The Web site is continuously updated, it’s much more expansive and it has multimedia.” ...
Sales of the Britannica peaked in 1990, when 120,000 sets were sold in the United States. But now print encyclopedias account for less than 1 percent of the Britannica’s revenue. About 85 percent of revenue comes from selling curriculum products in subjects like math, science and the English language; 15 percent comes from subscriptions to the Web site, the company said.
About half a million households pay a $70 annual fee for the online subscription, which includes access to the full database of articles, videos, original documents and to the company’s mobile applications.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Encyclopedia Britannica to Shut Down Print Operations
From today's New York Times:
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The ease of "browsing" through a set of encyclopedias when I was in my early school years is what I think the youth of today have already or will lose. Like paging through a National Geographic magazine and discovering new and different things you could never imagine to search for, the encyclopedia provided immediate access to varied content. You pulled one off the shelf, never knowing what it contained, and always found something of interest as you paged through the volumes of interesting facts and information.
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i hope they can duplicate that experience on-line. I will be checking how well they have done.
I use wiki all the time but I know what I am looking for, the wandering wonder world of youth may not know what to search for and may need what we experienced in the "pedia", exploring the world "at your fingertips" with just the flip of a page.
Yes, I too loved to browse through the encyclopedia (and the dictionary). And when I got to college and graduate school I loved to browse through library stacks. I was at UChicago in January and saw the marvelous new high-tech library. But, you can't browse through the stacks. You look through the catalog, find interesting books, order them, and a machine finds them and delivers them.
DeleteBut, there are ways to wander the web.