Encyclopedia Britannica Stops Its Print Edition

Posted: 15 Mar 2012 04:23 AM PDT

I have a bet with my father that by 2018 the New York Times will only have a digital edition available. We made the bet in 2008, and four years into it I am having doubts whether I’ll win or not. Probably it will take a bit longer for major newspapers completely abandon their print versions.

If my bet was placed on the Encyclopedia Britannica, though, I would have already won. That’s because they just announced that they will halt the print version and from now on you’ll only be able to get in in digital format.

This is quite an event considering we are talking about the most popular encyclopedia around the world, and one that has been printed for the past 244 years. It’s truly a new era coming.

Here’s a quote from the NY Times article talking about it:

In an acknowledgment of the realities of the digital age — and of competition from the Web site Wikipedia — Encyclopaedia Britannica will focus primarily on its online encyclopedias and educational curriculum for schools. The last print version is the 32-volume 2010 edition, which weighs 129 pounds and includes new entries on global warming and the Human Genome Project.

"It's a rite of passage in this new era," Jorge Cauz, the president of Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., a company based in Chicago, said in an interview. "Some people will feel sad about it and nostalgic about it. But we have a better tool now. The Web site is continuously updated, it's much more expansive and it has multimedia."

The full article can be found here: After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses.