Posted on 03/13/2012 4:48:39 PM PDT by ConservativeStatement
After 244 years, Encyclopaedia Britannica is shelving its venerable printed edition in favor of its Web-based version, completing a digital transition and marking the end of one of longest chapters in publishing history.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
It was bound to happen sooner or later. I’ve had instant access to an encyclopedia since the mid 1990’s when I installed Encarta from an image on the hard drive as opposed to the CD. Buggy whips only last as long as there are buggies.
I still prefer book. I don’t know how many hours i spent reading my folks old 57 edition World Book encyclopedias.
There really is such a thing as too clever.
When I was younger I use to love stuff like that, but I didn’t know how biased they were. With the internet we now have access to info they edit out through their bias.
Yup. I loved my World Book encyclopedia as a kid, but looking back now, they seem totally antiquated and unnecessary. Can’t think why anyone would buy print encyclopedias anymore. The only advantage is that the information you get online goes thru dubious “fact checking”.
I am proud to say that in 1984 I did an advertising campaign for EB and suggested then that the future was in video encyclopedia.
Some people are still attached to them. I can’t get my wife to read anything electronically, even though she has an iPad. I’ve gone completely digital and buy all my books for ereading now.
Anyone know the status or world book ecyclopedia? or webster dictionary?
We never had an encyclopedia until after I was grown. My Grandparents had the World Book and every time we would visit I would go get one of the volumes and study it.
A few years ago, I bought an entire set for only $20. Then I was given another full set from another year. I now have 3 including both the in depth and abridged sets.
I very seldom read them but for some reason am still glad I have them. I hope my grandchildren don’t just throw them away when I am gone.
I actually thought they had quit printing some time ago as there is no real use for a printed version anymore.
As long as there are 2nd graders, there will always be a print edition of Websters.
FINALLY,
Other than a North Korean nuke, an Iranian nuke, a Pakistani nuke, a Russian nuke, or a Chinese nuke, there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to worry about an EMP (look it up) wiping out everything electronic in this country.
Silly of us to be so paranoid to think that some other country may not like us...
I think that was the year we got our set of World Books. I was starved for knowledge and that was a great resource to get the basics. I love books too. Got a Kindle last year and I like it for travel (light) but you just can't randomly thumb around.
My Parents also have a ‘56/’57 (can’t remember which yr) set which I used all thru Grade/Jr High/High Schools in the 50s & mid-60s.
Sir Kenneth Clark, had this great quote about the 1913 edition in Another Part of the Wood (1974):
“One leaps from one subject to another, fascinated as much by the play of mind and the idiosyncrasies of their authors as by the facts and dates. It must be the last encyclopaedia in the tradition of Diderot which assumes that information can be made memorable only when it is slightly coloured by prejudice. When T. S. Eliot wrote ‘Soul curled up on the window seat reading the Encyclopædia Britannica,’ he was certainly thinking of the eleventh edition.”
You can have not only a whole set of encyclopedias, but every set ever published...on DVDs and it will all fit in a cigar box. A solar flare won’t hurt it either.
Grew up with an EB handed down by the grandparents. Can remember the day we loaded them all in the car (multiple trips? could have been) and stuck them on the shelf in our house. Definitely used them to “write reports” (which basically consisted of putting the EB article “in your own words”) during elementary school. It sorta was the “internet” of its time - a lot of info about a lot of things but ultimately a mile wide and an inch deep.
I have a full set from 1897.
The DVDs will survive the solar flare, but the DVD player will be toast! Back to square one!
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