Bye-bye Encyclopaedia Britannica print edition

After 244 years, it's the end of an era; Web and iPad app will still be available

The end of the Encyclopaedia Britannica print version (retail value $1400) shows that in an age of free information, no one wants to pay for anything more expensive than a broadband Internet connection and a decent laptop. 

The publisher of the 32-volume print edition, announced Wednesday that it will stop production and will only continue with its digital versions.

It may surprise some that in 1768, there was no broadband Internet and no Wikipedia.  No easy way for anyone to reach into the vast summary of human knowledge and find answers to trivia and pub quiz questions quickly and easily.  That was the year that Encyclopedia Britannica first published its compendium in Edinburgh, Scotland, a three-volume set that was soon a must-have for the learned and educated in the English-speaking world.

With US offices in Chicago and other satellite offices spread throughout the world, the Britannica was long considered the most scholarly of encyclopedias, employing 100 full-time editors and over 4,000 expert contributors on subjects ranging from archaeology to zoology.

Soon after the arrival of the Web, Britannica established a Web presence called Britannica Online available for $70 per year as opposed to the $1400 print version.  By the middle 2000s, 60% of Encyclopedia Britannica’s revenues came from its online holdings. 

But since the arrival of the Web, EB had watched its market share erode as many consumers were just as likely to use Google and Wikipedia to find information that was once considered the exclusive purview of the venerable publication.

In September of 2011, Encyclopedia Britannica announced that it was releasing a slick new iPad app containing its entire contents for the price of just $2 a month subscription fee.   But some critics continued to lambast the Britannica for charging anything at all for a service that had ostensibly been rendered obsolete by the free free free of Wikipedia and other online offerings.

The company has suffered financial hardships since at least the mid-1990s, when the company was purchased from the Benton Foundation from billionaire Swiss financier Jacqui Safra, according to (ironically) Wikipedia, which, for many, has come to replace the Encyclopaedia.  

The move resulted in the spin-off of a new company, Britannica.com to develop online and digital holdings and also resulted in layoffs and elimination of many employee benefits.

It is unlikely that Encyclopedia Britannica will disappear entirely – while its may lack the breadth of articles offered by Wikipedia, it offers a depth of scholarship that Wikipedia and others in the space can’t touch.  The question remains as to what EB will do in the future to support it large treasure house of scholarly works.

(Image source: LAtimes.com)