Wow...

As victim or beneficiary... I hope it is to benefit from the digital age.

I think as victims, those that would keep away from unavoidable trends. However, I don't know if it is the time to definitely remove print.

If I know/remember correctly, Britannica stated initially they would never go digital... eventually they did...

It's wise to restate.

(Kodak? sounds familiar?)

Anyhow... A nice, elegant, handy Britannica on the shelf could be missed.

A.

Half of me is sad. I loved leafing through it in the library as a kid and wanted my own set.

Half of me is not surprised. When I was a kid, I failed to find a lot of what I was looking for. And why has it taken them so long to discontinue it?

Does anyone use the online service, or the DVD? (Seems very 1997)

And this is probably the first time I've thought about Britannica for years.

My response is obviously based entirely on nostalgia. So, my conclusion is: move along, nothing to see here.

I think it's great that Britannica has found success in the digital age. It shows that if you are clever enough, there's enough virtual land for everyone -- even if you have a monolith as large as Wikipedia in your immediate peripheral vision.

Wondering what to do with our set from 1980. Anybody need to fill some shelves for a decorator house?

Only ever used it for school projects on the life and history of genre.
One huge minus in the internet age is that so few people actually read for themselves and learn/foster opinions for themselves.
On many CiF-and other www sites-(like the recent Ayn Rand item) its absolutely obvious that 99% hadn't read a word she'd written and were quoting comments garnered from the internet that they thought should suit their opinion based on the outline of Rand in the article.
I've ceased being staggered at how obviously Eng.Lit students haven't read or got a clue about the books they've supposed to have read, but have got by quite easily-and passed-thanks to canned opinion and criticisms on the internet.
Good luck to them, but it makes for boring debates on books.

Why not print it once a decade? I'm sure enough people would want it that way, and it wouldn't cost as much as a yearly update. How about that?

This was inevitable. While on-line can definitely make for a richer and timely experience, it is sad to see the end of such a a book collection. Physically holding a book such as this (or Shakespear's Globe, etc) is an experience without equal. No on-line search will ever replace that. Sadly.

The problem is that Wikipedia is not a very good substitute. Given the dynamic nature of its contents, it is not reliable for much more than the date of an event. We need a collection of stable, dated, signed and, preferably, well-footnoted articles about subjects of general interest.

I won't actually miss the EB very much. For one thing, I found their three-level approach to information just about useless.

What I do miss is a much smaller encyclopedia, the Academic American Encyclopedia. It contains very well-written articles by experts in their fields. Also important, the volumes are of a much easier size for handling than the EB volumes. The entire set takes up about a quarter of the the space that the EB requires.

Unfortunately, the AAE has been out of print since the mid-1990s. Up until recently, when I moved away, I consulted it in a university library and I still contemplate getting a copy for my own use.

Embarrassingly out of touch - I respect good fact checking as much as the next person, but it's pointless if by the time you've done it the information's 3 years out of date.

Show me your sources that I may verify.

With print editions it is much harder for people in the House of Commons to change the contents of the entries:

An analysis by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism for The Independent has found that MPs and staff working at the House of Commons have been responsible for making nearly 10,000 changes to pages of the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia.

Nearly one in six MPs have had their online Wikipedia entires changed from Parliament and dozens of the alterations appear to be attempts to erase embarrassing or disputed allegations made during the 2009 expenses scandal.

But other edits are completely unrelated to Parliament. One includes an alteration about a plot to spy on the United Nations, another about the legal status of Pringles snacks and there’s even a reference to the countries in which incest is still legal.

Source: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Trees everywhere will be heaving a sigh of relief.

I suppose you could be really modern, and go print-on-demand.

I've had EB on computer disk since 2003 but never bothered to install it. Says it all really.

My Dad bought a whole set in the early 1970s for me and my brother. It cost him half a weeks salary. He was a factory cleaner at the time.

Obviously it sat gathering dust on the shelf for may years completely ignored by the whole family whilst we watched the telly.

They got dusted by Mum about once a week.

Anytime we asked a question about anything he would shout -

'look it up in the bloody book!'

Ironically this is not really a sign of the degrading of society. In a way print forms of facts have been out of date since long-distance communication was invented. I remember a professor in University once telling us how that when he was a lad journals came out only quarterly in general and often less so that you might spend months researching something in the lab and then discover come quarter's end that Joey Joe Junior Shobbadoo two Universities over finished researching the same topic two months ago. Wasted money and time.

Not surprised by this at all. A reference book does need to be constantly updated to keep up with our constant hunger for recent and relevant information.

Hopefully this will be a much more respected version of Wikipedia that will provide clear, concise information with various links of interest that people can investigate more from. I just hope they keep their ethos of "a scholarly voice, an editorial process, and fact-based, well-written articles".

I'm really excited about this. And although encyclopaedias and reference books are a beauty to hold: the time has come.

Kodak's problem isn't that they didn't "transition to digital" fast enough. It's that they tried to transition to digital. They sold you cheap products as quickly as they could for short term gain without a moment's thought for what that could mean in the future. Not once did they think about marketing their film range to you. Which would have been easy, given the obvious advantages of film and the "nostalgia" of people at the time not wanting to give it up. How many would have said yes if they had proposed the idea that they didn't have to?

The Internet isn't something that's going to supersede and replace everything we've worked so hard on up until this point. It brings a lot more to the table. It compliments a lot of forms of media very well. But we need to learn to work with it, not jump to massive extremes. We don't either have to get rid of it or accept it in every imaginable corner of our lives. Some things can be replaced. Some things can't.

'One huge minus in the internet age is that so few people actually read for themselves and learn/foster opinions for themselves.'

I think the opposite is the case. I read more newspapers, more articles, more books,etc. than I ever did in the pre-internet age. Through the internet I can read reviews, and even preview a book I'm interested in, and have it on my Kindle in less than a few minutes. It's never been better for book lovers.
In the case of encyclopedias, I think their print days are gone. It's so much easier and quicker to look up and cross reference on internet encyclopedias, and they are kept constantly up to date.
I think that the days of the print newspapers are numbered also. Soon it will be just the Guardian website, and people will be reading it on whatever tablet platform they've got.

It's got nothing to do with digital vs leatherbound. Wikipedia, unlike Britannica, can show its sources and does not expect its articles to be taken as word of god. Transparancy of verifiability, not merely online convenience, is what makes Wikipedia modern and Britannica obsolete.

In terms of "respectability", Wikipedia averages 3.86 mistakes per article. Does that sound like a lot? Well, considering Britannica averages 2.92, I'd call Wikipedia's score respectable, given the scale of the work, wouldn't you?

Source: http://www.silicon.com/technology/networks/2005/12/16/wikipedia-vs-encyclopaedia-britannica-39155109/

the reality is that although people moan about Wikipedia not being reliable ... neither was EB particularly.....

In my opinion for scope, depth and accuracy ... generally Wiki absolutely murders EB....

I'm a historian. Do I trust wikis references and information - Nope. Is it useful as a first port of call on topics you need some general info on - absolutely.

Fact is I would never, ever, have cited a source as flaky as EB in a piece of serious work. In my opinion EB has long since been superseded and wiki is a decided improvement (its also worth noting that Wiki is infinitely better now than it was five years ago).

Quite honestly, I always thought of encyclopaedias as a bit tacky.

Right from the way they are sold: the stereotypical encyclopaedia salesman with their high pressure techniques, the reasons people buy them: for the image and look, having a great load of elaborately bound volumes sitting on the shelves, then rarely used because they are so cumbersome - who wants to have to thumb their way through some great heavy book to find out something.

Plus the fact that the write ups are mostly so dry and boring - and many of them out of date within a year or two.

Things like Wikipedia aren't perfect, but they're much preferable to what we used to have to rely on.

The bad thing about accessing information online is that someone could edit the information without you knowing or without you being able to do anything about it, with a book you have it there in front of you, no one can change it or edit it to suit their ideologies if they were inclined to do so, by not physically owning information you are to some extent at the mercy of others.

I have a feeling there will always be a place for physical books, they have quite a few advantages over online content, besides the point i've already mentioned you have tactile quality, to actually feel a book, smell a book, there is something special about that, also it's a lot easier on the eyes even with the new technology available nowadays.

And of course a book is not reliant on batteries, if hard times ever hit and you had long periods of no electricity or access to batteries you could still access your books and the precious information inside.

Requiescat in pace, Britannica.

Thank you very much, you've made a huge difference in my life.

Wikipedia has an entry called “Errors in the Encyclopædia Britannica that have been corrected in Wikipedia” that lists some notable “mistakes and omissions.” The Wikipedia entry says:

“These examples can serve as useful reminders of the fact that no encyclopedia can ever expect to be perfectly error-free (which is sometimes forgotten, especially when Wikipedia is compared to traditional encyclopedias), and as an illustration of the advantages of an editorial process where anybody can correct an error at any time.”

It's demise was Inevitable really.

RIP indeed, but in terms of its "scholarly voice" remember that such loons as Thor Heyerdahl were cited, contibuted and dismissed others with their uncritical backing.

I can't see how it can continue in its current form in the present day

(The 1911 Edition was the only one I ever trusted anyway)

Tyrannosaurus Britannica

EB print version just had to go on the basis of being inconvenient to use and expensive to revise. Now any new information (the death of an author, for instance) or mistakes can be corrected in seconds. This is the beauty of Wiki. Before it would have entailed waiting for a whole new print run or addenda. Eventually all informational material will go this way because the data accumulating in the world is too vast to be conveniently held within the covers of a book.

I once had over 2500 books, mostly reference material, on my shelves which I had to ditch because they were too expensive to transport abroad. Some I consulted now and again, some I never touched for years, if ever. Now most of the information in them I can retrieve at the touch of a button either online or on CD/DVD. What's in the book is far important than the most expensive of gold leaf covers. And I say this as a lover of books.

What is happening? First the guardian tells us the libraries are in danger, then the bastion of knowledge the eb. Juxtaposed is the decide of the press, With the pcc being abolished, because it has failed to maittain standards.

At first glimpse you would easily believe print media is moribund and digital the only way to go. But a closer look at wikipedia and appropedia reveals serious structural flaws in online writting. They take the latest references, not original sources; they try and be neutral, not have their Own perspective and Own voice.

Both of these facts make contrast and forming your Own opinions harder. Wikipedia questions blogs as not being notable enough. So where will we have the future - not authority - but respected voice of expertise and experience? Locked behind walled gardens of paid subscriptions only? That is the biggest loss With the end of eb.

Free, open and accessible expertise.

Wikipedia has an entry called “Errors in the Encyclopædia Britannica that have been corrected in Wikipedia” that

-- that at least spells its title correctly.

Hello, Graun? Not "Encyclopedia" but "Encyclopædia". (You don't even have to open a volume. Just look at the spines.)

Wikipedia is a criminal offence. Or should that be offense.

I bought the 1990 version of the Encylopedia Britannica for £50 on E-bay.

It was in immaculate condition,beautiful leather bindings, but takes up the whole width of my study.

The problem is, of course, the information is now twenty-two years out of date, and a lot has happened since 1990.

Some of the information in the 1990 edition has even proved to be wrong, especially in the scientific articles.

The huge advantage of on-line encyclopedias, is that they can continously be updated, corrected and expanded without limit.

EB has not ended. It has just ceased publishing a print version.

For "free, open and accessible expertise" Wiki is hard to beat. Many of their sources are available online ones so people can verify facts for themselves. In fact, where reliable sources are missing Wiki points this out.

Rather than complain about EB print passing, people should be complaining about library closures, which means that access to existing print books, especially rare ones, will be denied to the public, especially low income ones. In a so called liberal democracy this is a scandal.

Anybody who wants to read whatever has ever been written and is available should be able to do so, freely. Anything short of this is a denial of freedom.

I spent many happy hours as a lad pouring over the early-50's EB that my parents bought, and yes it was indeed a financial sacrifice for them at the time.

Modern technology has given this generation quicker access to more knowledge; let's hope the desire to learn (which is what the EB represented to many of us) can keep pace.

I've ceased being staggered at how obviously Eng.Lit students haven't read or got a clue about the books they've supposed to have read, but have got by quite easily-and passed-thanks to canned opinion and criticisms on the internet.
Good luck to them, but it makes for boring debates on books.

The problem isn't the students so much as the academic institutions that have fostered a climate in which this is acceptable and even natural. These places are now run by bureaucrats whose sole interests are balancing the budget and making sure everyone passes the end-of-year exams.

publishing in crisis

Print publishing in crisis read the article you will see that they have broadly made the decision to go digital anyway

Niche magazines (and for the moment books) are the only thing now that can probably turn a profit now publishing encyclopedias, less so

You can still rely on the Bible though (unless you are Michael Gove)

The print edition of Britannica is still a valuable resource in the digital age. The 1911 edition, I mean, which forms the backbone of any number of Wikipedia entries.

I was the proud owner of a set. After I got married they were no longer needed. The wife new everything.

I would love a set of Britannica, even if it is obsolete. There is something wonderful about having these book on the shelf. Problem is I don't have a shelf big enough for it in my tiny flat.

I have a sentimental attachment to Britannica (bought the DVD, subscribe to it), but I have to say that even the electronic version might be in trouble. I checked some articles in it recently and found that those were inferior to the articles on the same subjects in wikipedia - for example one article in Britannica contains only a few sentences, and nearly every sentence has a mistake, whereas in wiki it's a 4 thousand word article with good citations. It's true that some articles in wiki are appalling - the articles are only as good as the people editing them (and there are some weird people writing in wiki), but they get modified and become better. Not sure how Britannica is going to compete with it.

a victim, and it's our loss.

It's true that the advantage of the book form is chance discoveries. Web is somewhat linear and targeted where what appears to be accidental is a result of some program following your digital footprint.

According to Wikipedia, Edna Purviance was a plumber, so there you are. This, despite several editing following an obvious troll attack. It's not that Wikipedia beat EB, but the time you got your info from these snippets are over, as information is everywhere in vast amount, which is accessible from a computer. That's why Wiki works, I guess, because all you need is a general surface info to equip you with before going for a deep dive somewhere else. You could even say it's Google, not Wikipedia, which is the biggest encyclopedia portal.

Would have sold better had it been slightly cheaper; and had the words "DON'T PANIC" inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

You could even say it's Google, not Wikipedia, which is the biggest encyclopedia portal.

It's just a shame that Jorge Luis Borges didn't live long enough to write something about the Google/Wiki world; a world that he may have been among the first to envision/explore. Ficciones (1944) is still worth the read.

Sad. As a child you don't browse the internet and stumble across information in quite the same way as you do reading a book. This is the same as reading a newspaper in print and online. I read snippets of news online. I don't scour the paper like I used to. I'll also hop from newspaper site to newspaper site. Sometimes you can have too much information and on the internet it's all too easy to be sidetracked by something more trivial or mundane. As a child I would spend a happy hour leafing through the encyclopedia discovering new things. If I was 13 years old and faced with the internet I should imagine I'd look at Ben 10 websites, angry birds and porn.

What's the point of a reference source that you have to copy by hand, when you can copy and paste wikipedia (or should that be wikipædia?) into an essay in a fraction of a second.

Though I have to say I am impressed by the the fact that -- from the evidence of the photograph at the top -- the Encyclopaedia Britannica has an entire volume about someone I've never even heard of.

They must have done an eBook version for the Kindle or something? But then who would want the equivalent of an outdated Wikipedia even if it's at their finger tips.

Reminds of a quote from an all time classic film (Die Hard 4). "You're a dinosaur living in a digital age. And you will die."

What a real shame. I remember as a young boy I used the encyclopedia as reference for all of my projects homeworks and i remember how amazed I was at the amount of information you could get from them. Internet is great, but it wont be the same. Encyclopedias played a big part to a lot of us. Sad indeed.

I have a set...love'em.

When the nitwits rewrite history I can always trust my old fuddy duddy E.B.
Wikipedia,nice try though

I always rather liked Colliers encyclopedia when I was youung, not least because it actually gave the full ingredients if you looked up fireworks.

I bought a second hand set back in the 80s for my young nephew and lugged them on the bus with a couple of mates back to his house...I do hope he kept them for his kids. The transfer to digital and I'm sure to CD Rom isn't awful but inevitable and it saves a lot of paper and lugging hundred weights of info around by public transport.

I blame the invention of moveable type printing. There's nothing to compare with the feel of a beautifully illuminated, vellum manuscript.