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It’s actually been underway for years, and the company’s main source of revenue is now online learning tools and other products, rather than the physical books. This, he believes, is why many people will be willing to pay for a $70 yearly subscription or $1.99 monthly app. While the internet is excellent green technology where anyone can post any information they like, there’s still a place in society for educated experts.Ĭauz is confident about the switch to green technology. It’s the murmur of society, a million voices rather than a single informed one.” According to him, Wikipedia is great “for collecting everything from insights to lies and innuendos. Wikipedia, in particular, is big competition, but Cauz isn’t overly concerned. They can access it in only a few clicks without paying a dime, and it’s green technology with a low environmental impact.
#2010 ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA FINAL PRINT FREE#
While older generations may still look to physical volumes for research, younger generations have come to rely on the internet’s endless supply of free information. As Britannica president Jorge Cauz points out, “Updating dozens of books every two years now seems so pedestrian.”įor years, the internet has posed a threat to shelved encyclopedias–which are staying shelved more often. It’s a bow to progress that was inevitable, if sad for some book lovers.Īs the physical volumes were expensive, and had to be replaced every few years in order to stay relevant, shifting to green technology is one of the smartest moves Britannica could make. From now on, they’ll only be published electronically. The 2010 edition of the iconic volumes will be the last in print. Update: The last few thousand copies of the encyclopedia are selling like hotcakes.This picture of the Encyclopedia Britannica came from Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia.Īfter almost 250 years of printing massive collections of fact-filled books, the folks at Encyclopedia Britannica are embracing green technology. It’s not every day someone makes something that lasts a quarter of a millennium. It’s a choice many companies would be proud to make, but few will ever have that opportunity. They’ve built a company that has lasted two and a half centuries on the supposition that “Facts Matter.” When faced with the choice of continuing to make the same product they offered 244 years ago and continuing the mission they started 244 years ago, Encyclopaedia Britannica chose the latter. A few professors or old-fashioned types may value the sets, but it’s hardly a secret that if your goal is the storage and distribution of valuable knowledge, a bulky, expensive, 32-book set is not the way to go about it. But as far as an actual product, the encyclopaedia is nearly friendless. Is there anything to be said in the print edition’s defense? There are some high-level arguments about the value of keeping hard copies of data, and certainly there are some demographics better served by books than the internet. And as companies like Kodak and Polaroid can attest, an iconic product isn’t the same as a successful product. It’s a no-brainer for the company: 99% of their revenue comes from their other businesses. Just before the dawn of the web, in 1990, they sold 120,000. Only 8000 copies of the 2010 edition were sold 4000 are being warehoused. This Encyclopaedia sells for $1395, and at 32 volumes, it would be out of place on any but the most expansive libraries. The question of print versus online is different when you’re not talking about cheap paperbacks versus e-books, or news magazines versus blogs. Especially when print and knowledge are in such upheaval. The passing of any institution as old as this one, even if it isn’t going away completely (they actively maintain a subscription-based reference site), is a moment on which to reflect. But most, perhaps most tellingly, won’t care – indeed won’t ever notice. Some will stroke their chins, some will wail and tear their hair, some will shout for joy.
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So it is likewise strange to attempt to put in context the fact that 2010’s Encyclopaedia Britannica will be the last one printed. It is difficult for us to conceive of, having grown up with reference works, and more difficult still for a new generation raised with the Internet and its promise of instant access to virtually any work or knowledge. That year, the Encyclopaedia Britannica printed its first edition: three volumes comprising a compressed but useful near-totality of human knowledge. On Optics, or On the Use of Leeches, or Travels Among the Savages of the New World, that sort of thing. Few general-purpose reference works existed (the earliest came only a few years before), however, with much essential knowledge split between many smaller, more specific volumes.
#2010 ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA FINAL PRINT FULL#
In 1768, the Enlightenment was in full swing, and the printing press was being employed liberally as a method of disseminating knowledge among the (then still relatively few) literate and learned.