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After 244 Years, the End For the Dead Tree Encyclopedia Britannica

Posted by Soulskill on from the your-encyclopedia-needn't-outweigh-you dept.

Rick Zeman writes "According to the New York Times, it's the end of the road for the printed Encyclopedia Brittanica, saying, '...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.' The last print edition will be the 32-volume 2010 edition."

6 of 373 comments (clear)

  1. The ultimate hipster edition by casings · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That actually sounds like a really "cool" thing to own.

    1. Re:The ultimate hipster edition by jhoegl · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just wait until we live in the post energy Mad Max era of lack of knowledge.
      Why, if you owned those, you would be... GOD! Or a washed up singer in charge of some sort of barter town.

    2. Re:The ultimate hipster edition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "The Way Things Work" would be a more concise, possibly helpful resource -- albeit I only have an much older edition, which may in fact be more useful as it's mostly related to physical everyday things which could mostly be made using relatively primitive tools.

  2. Losing A Snapshot Of History by djnanite · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is quite sad. I obviously prefer my source of knowledge to be up-to-date, and easily accessible, so online encyclopedias make sense. But...I find it quite charming flicking through copies of encyclopedias that are more than 20 years old, seeing a snapshot of our knowledge at the time, and seeing how we've moved on since then. And what library was complete without a complete set of these on their shelves?

    1. Re:Losing A Snapshot Of History by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Which begs the question : Why didn't the EB take the lead as the premiere on line reference resource? They had the pole position, they had the background process of collecting and cataloging the information, it would have been trivial to create an on line presence. Yet, they didn't. 244 years of diligence, flushed in a single decade. Wow. I guess it's true - having information isn't good enough, you have to know how to use it as well.

  3. Re:Citable by Pharmboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You will never be able to cite Wikipedia in a paper without looking foolish. It really isn't designed for that. You CAN use Wikipedia to get an understanding of a topic, and the references they use are usually pretty good and CAN be used as a cite without looking fooling.

    Wikipedia is a great tool, but it will never replace paper encyclopedias, by design. Then again, any paper that only cites encyclopedias (paper or otherwise) isn't a good paper. Even Wikipedia requires multiple sources, as should any good paper, for a balance of perspective and confirmation of key points.

    --
    Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!