No Paper – The End of Hard Copy Encyclopedia Britannica
After 244 years, Encyclopedia Britannica no longer will be available in printed form. This confirms that we are in the digital age. No more debate.
Over the past 10 years the use of the printed encyclopedias has been dropping drastically. Online sources like Google and Wikipedia have become people’s favorite way of finding information. The significance this shift is far reaching. Now our cultural icon is a computer, not printed volumes.
Britannica will continue to publish the encyclopedia in digital form and focus on other digital services that promote the brand, but say “so long” to those dusty old printed and bound volumes sitting on the shelf. And while some parents and scholars may wax nostalgic and decry the booting of the paper version, most people could not care less. Reference works in general are optimal on the web and if you have Internet access you can get the information more quickly, more easily, and with up-to-date revisions.