The passing of an era

[Mogura]

After 244 years, Encyclopedia Britannica will cease production of its iconic multi-volume book sets.

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Not surprised, given the advances in technology and digital media. But still it's kinda sad. Like many, I spent many an hour in high school and university libraries with a stack of these heavy, venerable books on the table...

[holdyourhead]

Wow. I remember the big red Encyclopedia Britannica books. I used them a few times when I was a child. Sad to see them going.

[logan]

To clarify, the company will be fully shifting it's focus from printed versions to it's online version. (The last printed version was in 2010.)

[ppu6502]

Books will be missed :[

It makes you wonder if we took a wrong turn somewhere along the way..

[Daoist]

I was watching an apocolypse movie, and I was thinking that many of the problems in the movie would be easy to solve if you could just check wikipedia...Doh! I told myself I was going to write a letter to Jimmy Wales to make sure that a paper copy of wikipedia existed somewhere. But I never did that. :blank:

[stealthfighter]

Before I got exposed to the internet, encyclopedias were the only means for me to dig general information instantly. They do look and feel so archaic now considering my reliance on the internet for the last 10 years. I do hope Britannica and company would still thrive in the future as their content is certainly far more reliable than most of today's online resources.

[scorpiomover]

I did a substantial amount of learning from my family's Encyclopaedia Britannica. The data was very detailed, very authoritative, and very, very accurate to the knowledge of the day. I used the Index substantially, because that would tell me where to look for what I wanted to know about, and would also give me all the pages that were related, which gave me a comprehensive knowledge of the subject. I could read up almost anything on it, and would have comprehensive and accurate knowledge of any subject, that everyone recognised as being quality knowledge on the topic. Really great.

[Still Standing]

Makes sense. No need for printed encyclopedias and dictionaries anymore since they're most often used in conjunction with writing, which is mostly done on a computer nowdays. Shifting between computer windows/programs is this century's way to go when it comes to word/content searching.

[Vermillion]

Doesn't bug me. Information can be absorbed much faster online. I'm still waiting for the day when we can download data directly into our brains. :)