Encyclopedia Britannica to stop printing books

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http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/13/technol ... /index.htm

I enjoy reading the encyclopaedias. I wish that they would keep making them.

Super-expensive encyclopedias are dead anyway thanks to the Internet.

is my response.

I read they are making their online free for this week only.

Okay, I'll accept the possibility that I may be a little Schizo-something, but I truly fear the extinction of printed on paper books, especially encyclopedias.


I think of how easy it is to change information online, and how easily it can be erased.... but books in every library, and books in homes can not be changed like digital information can.


And ever since I heard of the alleged attempts by Sarah Palin fans to change Wikipedia's Paul Revere page to make it more in line with Sarah's version of history, I've been more skeptical of online history.


Edit to add: I used to work in a library a long time ago (first summer job). I can't imagine life without books.

Last edited by goodwitchy on 15 Mar 2012, 8:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I find it sad, but I also feel that the extinction of printed encyclopedias was inevitable in the Internet age. But I do fear the extinction of printed books in general. Reading tablets are okay, but for me they'll never replace the experience of wandering through the library, pulling books off the shelf at random, flipping through the pages, searching for something of quality. It's one of my favorite pastimes, and I would be depressed and lost without it.

Gotta find solid sources and fact check, fact check, fact check. If you have remote access to university databases all the better. I do, and this is how I do quite a bit of my "leisure" research

As to the OP though, I think it is very unfortunate, but inevitable

Yes, I agree.
I don't have university database access, but I tend to be a chronic researcher online. The internet is a reflection of society, thus filled with many polarized opinions lately. Even with the news, I feel like I need to listen/watch at least a few different stations to get a story closer to reality.

I'll miss you, paper bound Britannica. You were a tremendous help to me in my school days, and just when I wanted to learn something just for the fun of it.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I share some of these concerns. For example, we have . . .




Democracy Now is a radio show which bats from the left side of the plate politically, as I generally do as well. I think it's generally a good show, but in the interests of full disclosure, I do want to include this.

I've also heard this viewed as a whistle-blower case.

Now, can we have good, solid investigative reporting without "stolen" voice mails? Sure, in large part we can just talk to the agricultural workers in Central America most affected by the policy, but that kind of hard work often is not done by media outlets.

Well, what the Cincinnati Enquirer did was to go super in the direction of goody-two-shoes-ism and electronically rewrote the series of articles!

So, yeah, it does help to have stuff in print.

I like print as you can read something for a lot longer time. For example I have a print copy of the 1988 World Book Encyclopedia and you still can read it, while if you had an electronic one from 1988, you would have a hard time finding a device that can read it, as it would probably be on a long obsolete storage medium. The 1986 BBC Domesday Project had a hard time being read again after the '80s as both the computers that the software worked on and the Laserdisc drives used to play the software we hard to find.

R.I.P. encyclopedia entries that don't have [citation needed] after every sentence.

Electronic media is a wonderful invention but it's still a mistake to get rid of printed books, as that could lead to a digital dark age:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_dark_age

Funny

The only new bookstore that I know about in my part of Houston is Barnes & Noble. We used to also have a Borders. It's a serious step to go from 2 to 1 major chain.

(We also have Half Price Books for used books.)