After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica goes out of print

[Miguel]

After 244 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print.

Those coolly authoritative, gold-lettered sets of reference books that were once sold door to door by a fleet of traveling salesmen and displayed as proud fixtures in American homes will be discontinued, the company is expected to announce on Wednesday.

In a nod to the realities of the digital age — and, in particular, the competition from the hugely popular Wikipedia — Encyclopaedia Britannica will focus primarily on its online encyclopedias and educational curriculum for schools, company executives said.

The last edition of the encyclopedia will be the 2010 edition, a 32-volume set that weighs in at 129 pounds and includes new entries on global warming and the Human Genome Project.

...in recent years, print reference books have been almost completely wiped out by the Internet and its vast spread of resources, particularly Wikipedia, which in 11 years has helped replace the authority of experts with the wisdom of the crowds.

Created as a free online encyclopedia that is now written and edited by tens of thousands of active contributors, Wikipedia has been gradually accepted as a largely accurate source, even by scholars and academics, and one that meets the 21st-century requirements of comprehensiveness and instantly updated material. It has nearly four million articles in English, many of them on pop-culture topics that would not pass muster in the pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

The oldest continuously published encyclopedia in the English language, the Encyclopaedia Britannica has become a luxury item with a $1,395 price tag; it is typically purchased by embassies and well-educated, upscale consumers who feel an attachment to the set of bound volumes. Only 8,000 sets of the 2010 edition have been sold, and the remaining 4,000 have been stored in a warehouse until they can be purchased.

...Sales of Encyclopaedia Britannica peaked in 1990, when 120,000 sets were sold in the United States.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/20...e-presses/

My contribution to Wikipedia: They had Marie as Haley's middle name as recently as last week. I changed it to Elizabeth. It was changed back because I didn't cite a source. So I changed it again and, after referring to the authoritative HaleyFans.com for the source, I included a link to the video where Haley herself states her middle name is Elizabeth.

[Tusk]

LOL I remember how incredibly valuable the Encyclopaedia Britannica was as a resource. It was a big investment for our family.

My Dad bought a set for us (came in stages by mail) and they used to have 'salesmen' who would go door to door to sell them. It was the difference between trekking to the library or staying at home to do a report (and was great reading too, believe it or not )

Sad such a great tool of education fades away....

[John Brown]

An end of an era. I spent many an hour with a Britannica in my lap reading when I was a kid.

[Himm2]

Ironic that my uncle who worked for Encyclopedia Brittanica his whole life Died at age 90 the day they announced this.

[Miguel]

If he was 90 he worked for them in their heyday. Their ceasing publication is likely something he never thought he would live to see and in some ways it's fortunate he didn't.

The Internet has also destroyed the Yellow Pages business, but I don't have much sympathy for them.

I ran a Yellow Pages ad once and they automatically ran it again the next year even though I had moved out of town. There was apparently a clause in the fine print of the contract about automatic renewal but it was never mentioned to me. I was forced to pay for the renewal or have them ding my credit