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After 244 Years, the End For the Dead Tree Encyclopedia Britannica
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."
That actually sounds like a really "cool" thing to own.
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?
...because there's no information from authoritative experts on Wikipedia?
On the other hand, I'd love to own print copy of Britannica. Well, if it were up-to-date and not $1,400.
A 32 volume printed set and "up to date" are mutually exclusive.
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!
A well-written Wikipedia article should include citations to the relevant statements. So, instead of citing Wikipedia, you can look up where the Wikipedia contributors got the information from and cite that. In some areas one doesn't even need to do that- the well written math articles generally contain proofs of the major claims in question, so you can verify the proofs yourself.
They will still have their website, software and other products still around. They are just discontinuing the book series and blaming Wikipedia (not modern progress) for this change.
Just add {In Space!} to anything.
How did the hipster burn his mouth?
He ate pizza before it was cool.
http://xkcd.com/978/
I think the best investment my parents ever made in us kids was buying an encyclopedia. I can't tell you how many hours I sat in our library (a room filled with books on two walls and a giant map on the third) reading about all sort of subjects under the sun and subjects far beyond the sun. Lots and lots of time. I would just pick up a volume and open it at random and start reading. So it's kind of sad that the printed version is going away. Once in sixth grade, in response to some knowledge I gleaned from my encyclopedias, said, "Do you just sit around and read encyclopedias!?" I replied, "Yes, I do."
"Scientists have been wondering why historical records mysteriously ended sometime around the year 2012. It's as if humanity decided to just stop writing things down, and left everything to oral tradition. It's sad that we will never know what happened between then and the eventua downfall of one of the greatest ancient civilizations that ever lived."
The bottom line is that Wikipedia isn't written by experts, or for the large part by people who have expertise in *any* field, and for topics outside CS and parts of the sciences, it's pretty poor because non-expert "crowds" don't have much judgment. In short-- there's no wisdom in crowds, only amplified ignorance.
That's simply not true. Wikipedia's articles on manga and anime characters are second to none.
#DeleteChrome
I can't find the setting to show the thread scores. And YES MUTHAFUCKERS, I've looked everywhere.
Lacking written records certainly facilitates revisionist history. I just read online that Encyclopedia Britannica stopped putting out printed editions over 25 years ago. So how is this news? ;-)
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
This is mainly due to the fact that there is no "stable" Wikipedia -- things change so quickly that citing Wikipedia makes it very difficult for anyone to actually look up whatever you were citing. If there were "snapshots" that were widely distributed, say at the end of each year, one could simply cite those snapshots.
There are stable snapshots, and you don't have to wait for the end of the year to get them:
There, you now have an URL to an immutable version of the article as it is when you read it. Even if the base article is edited afterwards, your link will never change.
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You're the guy who would never have started the project in the first place. The truth about Wikipedia is that the process delivers a quality level that never previously existed. How one assesses its quality really depends on how one approaches it. When you arrive from a blank slate, it's a pretty good first meal. If you're trying to reach escape velocity to intellectual purity and enlightenment, well, endurance athletes classify three quarters of the human diet under poison: sugar, alcohol, cholesterol, additives, and on and on. So true. To an endurance egghead, Wikipedia is outright poison. To a starving African, it's a Swedish buffet.
We're on the familiar terrain here of purity narcissism. Not good enough for my fine brain. Definitely, Wikipedia is not ever going to get there. Out of the 4 million articles, there are maybe 5000 where I'm qualified to heap my scorn. For all the rest, amplified ignorance is vastly superior to no signal at all. In fact, amplified ignorance makes for a pretty good road map for charting the quickest route out of town to the lofty hilltops, if you've got a week to kill. Click. 5001.
No, you have it entirely wrong your insults notwithstanding. Even in middle school, which was 25+ years ago, I was not allowed to use an Encyclopedia reference. I was taught that an encyclopedia is a good starting point, but for the facts contained, you had to go to the source that the encyclopedia referred to. The encyclopedia, in and of itself, is not a source of information but a collection of sources.
So if you don't understand that, then perhaps you had a poor education.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
The alleged "authority of experts" is questionable marketing bravado. In the last century, a large percentage of their articles were gleaned from popular media sources of the day and the authors were newspaper and magazine contributors.
I happen to have a set that I inherited from my grandfather. He was kind of a hustler and wore a lot of hats in his life, including drummer in a swing band, bootlegger, and minister. At one point he tried his hand at selling encyclopaedias. What I have is his demo set. It's dated 1929. Since the articles were written one or two years before the edition went to print, the article on the booming stock market and the forecast of endless prosperity is both chilling and hilarious. It's written by a financial editor from the Wall Street Journal. Equally amusing are the ones on being a proper and obedient wife and homemaker from an article in a women's magazine.
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
I own a complete set of the 1958 Encyclopedia Americana. I do not own it because it is up-to-date, and I got it for free. I keep it because it reminds me of how quickly the sum of human knowledge changes. Many people would consider this a waste of space for what is only a sentimental reason.
In 1958, this was probably one of the best summaries of human knowledge available.
"God does not play Minecraft with the world." - Albert Einstein
You should never cite an encyclopedia in a paper, period, unless you're writing a paper about encyclopedias.
I understand that's the "rule", but I think it's a stupid one. The reason for the rule is legitimate: you ough to rely mainly on primary sources. You don't want to cite the encyclopedia entry on Adam Smith; you want to cite Wealth of Nations directly. That's fine, but if mindlessly enforced (as it is), it means many facts that are useful but not necessarily central to your point aren't given sources at all; they're treated as "common knowledge".
For example suppose you are doing a paper on the history of computer privacy, and you cite the landmark 1973 HEW report "Records, Computers and the Rights of Citizens". But if you look at the report itself it's clear that the report while delivered in July 1973, was started in the Spring of 1972. This means it was developed as the Watergate Scandal was unfolding. That particular tidbit explains a great deal that is curious about this report, for the report lays out a strong case for privacy restraints on private aggregators of commercial data, but then actually recommends *against* such restraints in the conclusion. On January 30, 1973 HEW Secretary Eliot Richardson shifted to Defense, after most of the report had been compiled. The conclusions were written under the his more conservative replacement, Caspar Weinberger.
Now you have three choice for dealing with a fact like that. You can just allude to it without citations. You can cite an encyclopedia entry on Eliot Richardson. Or you can try to dig up original references in US government documents. Well, the search for original sources for a fact like this isn't really worth the trouble, and the encyclopedia citation is forbidden, so what people do in cases like this is simply go ahead and use the fact without citing a source.
I think the *rational* standard would be to have a source for *every* fact, but allow any reputable reference work as a source for auxiliary facts where there is no question on interpretation of paraphrasing. The "no encyclopedia" rule bans encyclopedias but allows similar kinds of references to be used, even though those references are not primary sources either. I could cite the CRC handbook on, say, the atomic weight of iron, but it's not a primary source. That'd be the papers in chemical or physics journals used by the CRC editors.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Wikipedia's Article on Britannica
60 paragraphs on Britannica's history, status, organization, awards, etc. 15 paragraphs on criticisms, bias, racism/sexism. Cites over 100 sources.
Britannica's Article on Wikipedia
2 paragraphs on Origin and Growth (one of which is devoted to suggesting that Wikipedia is running out of steam or somehow failing in its mission), 4 paragraphs on "Issues and controversies," including a suggestion that Wikipedia was a haven for child pornography. Everything about the article says, "parents, keep your children away from this new-fangled, dangerous, unreliable Wikipedia thing!" Cites no sources. What is really amusing is that Britannica's stated slogan (at the top of every page) is "facts matter." I guess attribution does not. Their home page features an image of a 1st-gen iPad with the caption "looking ahead." If Britannica considers 2010 to be the future, that explains a lot.
I wouldn't count on it. I just tried browsing through their 2007 crawl. All the sites I tried were 404'd.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I used to spend hours randomly browsing through the articles. At some point, over many moves, they were given away. Now, I find I do the same thing, but on Wikipedia.
It used to be that when you visited someone's home for the first time, you could learn a bit about them by seeing what books they had on their shelves... which ones were worn, how chaotic or organized the books were, how many they had, what they were about, how many were lying around in mid-read... and if there was a set of encyclopedias somewhere. And, of course, if there was not a single book in the house, there was something suspect about them.
I suspect that in a decade or two, what I'll learn from seeing books in someone's house is that they are old. I'm sure I'll be included in that.
I grew up with the Encyclopedia Britannica. Apparently, though, your reading skills are poor. No, I wasn't steered wrong. The point isn't the quality of the encyclopedia, it is the fact that it IS an encyclopedia. It is not original work, and oughtn't be treated as if it were.
Your insults are weak, misdirected and repetitve. You can't get a simple concept through your head and instead misconstrue it as if we are putting down the Encyclopedia Britannica. We are not. Encyclopedias should not be used as a reference source, only the sources they reference. If you yourself really read articles in the Encyclopedia, you would find they have quite a bit of cross reference. Unless you are a lazy researcher, which you certainly appear to be, you go to those sources, read the material for yourself and then write your paper referring to the original sources.
You call me and the OP "fast fooders". You are the one who lazily reads an encyclopedia and then cites it as a source. Grow up. Learn to read, and argue the point being argued.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year