Presses Stop Rolling for Encyclopedia Britannica
Is nothing sacred? First Kodak stopped developing cameras, and now Encyclopedia Britannica has shelved its print version after 244 years of publishing.
The publisher of the substantial, gold-embossed tomes says that it cannot compete with the Internet in terms of breadth and timeliness. Whereas the printed Encyclopedia had physical heft and intellectual weight, Wikipedia and other sites are fast, lightweight and portable when accessed on smart phones. By the time an encyclopedia volume is lifted from a shelf, its index consulted, and its pages flipped to find the right entry, a computer, smart phone or tablet user will have found several online sources, many of them fact-checked and reputable enough to be deemed reliable.
We all know that the Web has an advantage over print materials when it comes to timeliness and the sheer volume of information. I completely understand Encyclopedia Britannica’s decision to forgo mass production in favor of online distribution. If I believed otherwise, I’d have a recent set of the printed books as a way of demonstrating my devotion to it. But I don’t, and neither do a lot of people. Of the 12,000 printed, only 8,000 have been sold, After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses according to the New York Times.
(Image source: The Atlantic)
The most recent set, published in 2010, consisted of 32 volumes, weighed 129 pounds, and cost $1,395. Apart from libraries, who has the space or money for an entire set these days? Compare that to the $70 subscribers pay per year to access the Britannica’s information on the Web, a task they can do anywhere in the world without being bound to the room that houses the books.
For many of us, the Encyclopedia Britannica was the authority on everything — everything! Many a term paper began with a perusal of the encyclopedia. If you visited a friend’s home that had an Encyclopedia Britannica set displayed on its bookcases, you knew that this guy or gal’s family was not only well-to-do but also classy and smart. Growing up, I had an encyclopedia, a Funk & Wagnall’s set my mother got at the supermarket with cash register receipts. Each week she came home with a new volume until she finally reached Z and we had a full set. The Funk & Wagnall’s was wrong in so many ways — the stiff binding, the clunky type, the lackluster illustrations, the wimpy size, and the goofy name (the name!) — but most of all, it just wasn’t The Encyclopedia Britannica.
What does the cessation of the print Encyclopedia Britannica mean to you? What are your memories of it? Let me know in the Comments section at the bottom of the page.
In the meantime, here are what others had to say about the end of an era.
Encyclopedia Britannica halts print publication after 244 years from The Guardian of London
A Sign of the Times: Encyclopaedia Britannica to End Its Print Run from The Atlantic
After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses from The New York Times
Death By Wikipedia: Encyclopedia Britannica Stops Printing form Read Write Web
It’s inevitable, but what happens 50 years down the road when the then current technology cannot access the old electronic files? Sure, we will have new files to read, but I happen to enjoy reading my 1927 set of The Book of Knowledge. It’s a true view into the beliefs of its era, not tainted by politically correct historians’ views of what it should have said.
We are traveling so fast we are losing our histories and those who don’t read/remember/understand histories are doomed to repeat them.
(…to say nothing of the fact that every high school senior should have to research and write a 10 page research paper without electronic assistance just once, so they know how it all came to be. I suppose such work would be considered barbaric by today’s standards.)
The president of Britannica isn’t getting nostalgic…he’s a realist. Knowing that the careful research is available through their site (and others) is comforting. If I were a student (or had kids), I’d probably look into a subscription.
We had the World Book growing up and it was fantastic. My mom still has them. I hope my nieces don’t ever attempt to use them. The last annual we got was in 1986, I think. Yugoslavia and the USSR were still countries. I get the nostalgia, but how would this outdated info be useful?
Also, the expense kept most people from being able to afford it. Most of my friends were middle class, like me, and had two parents. In this world of fast-moving, single-parent households, this type of info might be out of reach, if not for the internet. As I like to say in my seminars, “The medium is no longer the message…the message is the message.” Information is what’s key…and it’s up to the individual to wade through what’s fact and what’s fiction!
The loss is most unfortunate. Though there are a plethora of information sources on the internet virtually all are of dubious reliability — to put it mildly. The Britannica was an authoritative reference and its absence will be missed.
At a recent family gathering of five, there were three iPads, five iPhones, and a MacBook Air. During a discussion about the duration of some war somewhere, my 88-year old mom went to the living room and grabbed the (ahem) 50-year old World Book Encyclopedia and looked it up. We definitely got the answer faster on our electronics, but still enjoyed mom’s “old fashioned” technique. I’m sad to see the books disappear, but love the instant access to information we have today.
We are now fast pace romantics. We sigh for the old ” ” at the line up to the arriving of the latest technology, then we get distracted by a tweet or a ring of someone saying “did you hear the news?”
Time waits for no one, sigh!
The one thing about a printed version is its endurance. I have 3 sets of Britannica, 1963, 1927 and the best 1911. Its wonderful to read of the latest technology of 100 years ago, its inspiring to know that they actually knew a lot back then. Unfortunately much knowledge gets displaced as newer items are added. The 1911 version is more opinionated than would be “allowed” today but never-the-less refreshing to read. Some of the maps still have white spaces – areas yet to be explored. And the binding is shot so, silly me, I may have a go at rebinding it, another disappearing art no doubt.
The print edition is beautiful, but as a source of information, there’s nothing like electronically searching for text. The Britannica is mainly meant to be a source of information, not an esthetic entity – and as that, it fails miserably when compared to electronic searches.
As an art director and graphic artist who has worked in print for quite some time, the general role of print has seen somewhat of a decline as well, so I have been watching this change to my industry. But nothing quite matches my recollection of having our set of encyclopedias, which i realize was just another example of my mom doing her best to make our lives richer or better, much like her sacrifice for me to have braces. And i agree with your sentiments about what these things meant in the household for those who owned them. I feel very blessed that i had a mom who wanted the best for us, and it stands as a testament to middle class aspirations that are now being lumped in with the entire 99%, without that distinction that people like my mother made, hard working, saving not spending when there were means left over from trying to support us with just even the basics. I equate it along with the piano lessons that she got for us at well. I am sure there is an article or book in there about this tail end of the “boomers” to see the demise of the encyclopedia and what it signifies for us.