Encyclopedia Britannica to Stop Printing Encyclopedias

[MrJonno]

I remember a sales job where I had to straight out lie.

We promised one to one IT training for only £15 per hour + VAT, but how many people would consider listening to a tape recorder of someone speaking as one to one!

[Svartalf]

When was the last time you know of someone actually purchasing encyclopedias... 30 years ago? I enjoyed looking at such things as a kid (we had loads of Time-Life sets, which were similarly broad and immediately outdated when printed!) but the inherent obsolescence always made me wonder why people would ever buy them...

Actually, were I not so damn poor, I'd have bought the multivolume Larousse Encyclopedic Dictionary in the 1994 or 2004 editions... well, at least before I became a wiki addict.

and not All of it is that obsolescent... sure, my '64 was quite deficient on commputers, but it seems that what it contains on metallurgy still is valid. Similarly, if you want to check non contemporary historical subjects, it stays fine barring major discoveries.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

When was the last time you know of someone actually purchasing encyclopedias... 30 years ago? I enjoyed looking at such things as a kid (we had loads of Time-Life sets, which were similarly broad and immediately outdated when printed!) but the inherent obsolescence always made me wonder why people would ever buy them...

I bought the Marshall Cavendish Illustrated Encyclopedia of World War II about 30 years ago.

[klr]

When was the last time you know of someone actually purchasing encyclopedias... 30 years ago? I enjoyed looking at such things as a kid (we had loads of Time-Life sets, which were similarly broad and immediately outdated when printed!) but the inherent obsolescence always made me wonder why people would ever buy them...

30 years ago seems about right. It's not just the new technological environment that makes the mode of delivery obsolete, but also the pace of change in both technology and recent history. The moment you commit something to hard copy, it's out of date.

[Bella Fortuna]

When was the last time you know of someone actually purchasing encyclopedias... 30 years ago? I enjoyed looking at such things as a kid (we had loads of Time-Life sets, which were similarly broad and immediately outdated when printed!) but the inherent obsolescence always made me wonder why people would ever buy them...

30 years ago seems about right. It's not just the new technological environment that makes the mode of delivery obsolete, but also the pace of change in both technology and recent history. The moment you commit something to hard copy, it's out of date.

Exactly.

[Coito ergo sum]

When was the last time you know of someone actually purchasing encyclopedias... 30 years ago? I enjoyed looking at such things as a kid (we had loads of Time-Life sets, which were similarly broad and immediately outdated when printed!) but the inherent obsolescence always made me wonder why people would ever buy them...

Not for a long, long time. My parents still have two sets of encyclopedias purchased in the late 1960's. When the time comes, I will display them on a shelf in our house, and along with a few other items, they will make me think of my parents. I remember thumbing through the encyclopedias randomly from time to time, just reading about stuff.

Yes, plenty of sources on the internets are much more useful. However, the trend is to eliminate the freebies. The internet is slowly being locked down. While paper books weren't free, at least once you bought them, they were always on your shelf.

Yes, they were essentially outdated at printing, but at the time it was the best we could do. I remember having to do research papers in college without any internetz being available. I would trot on down to the college library, and thumb through card catalogs -- you know, actual cards on which an actual person had used a typewriter to type the book information -- then I'd go to the appropriate aisle in the library and locate relevant "books" and grab a stack of them and find a cubicle or a table and slog through the indexes and tables of contents to find various relevant sections or just read them through. For some projects, things called "microfilm" held the more obscure titles and newspapers and things. So, one would have to become adept with various microfilm indexes, and find particular newspapers and scan through the pages until an article was found that may have been relevant.

Given how difficult it was to do in depth research "back in the day," having a resource, even an out of date one, at one's fingertips at home gave one a starting point, at a minimum. Usually with some sources cited to help you do research.

Now, of course, I can find more material in 2 minute search than I could find all afternoon at the library back in the old days.

[Hermit]

When was the last time you know of someone actually purchasing encyclopedias... 30 years ago? I enjoyed looking at such things as a kid (we had loads of Time-Life sets, which were similarly broad and immediately outdated when printed!) but the inherent obsolescence always made me wonder why people would ever buy them...

30 years ago Al Gore had not yet invented the World Wide Web, the internet was still known as Arpanet, personal computers were not yet common, and if anyone had one of them, the chances of also owning a modem were even slimmer. It would have been one of those gadgets you cup over the telephone handset, and chugging away at a stately 300 baud per second. Or was it per minute? The Wikipedia is only ten years old.

I bought a second hand 1961 edition of the EB, including all the yearbooks from then up to 1977 in 1978 for $120. Looking something up involved finding the item in question in the index volume, pulling out the volume for what you think might be the most likely reference, finding out you should have tried the other one, then yet another, until you have half a dozen books spread out open on the carpet. Half the time you haven't found what you were after two hours later, but you've found out many other interesting things in the meanwhile. Sometimes one of those interesting things are so interesting, you follow them up instead, which leads to more interesting things... There are times when you stop and try to remember what you were after in the first place. Yes, that happens still, but you do it much more quickly on the computer now.

I bought my first computer in 1988. Not many months later I had added a mouse, a soundcard, speakers and a modem. The latter had become quite affordable and quick. $495 and blazing away at 2.4 kilobits per second, and it included a year's worth of subscription to the telco's portal. Then it was on to Google from Mosaic, bulletin boards mailing lists, internet relay chat and usegroups. The floodgates to digital information were thrown wide open. There was no going back, and very happily so. After gathering dust for a number of years my hardcopy of the EB finished up being donated to a second-hand bookshop.

Ah, yeah, Coito ergo sum, I had similar experiences to yours at Sydney University's Fisher library. Ambling along rows of books trying to pinpoint the location of a publication. There were well over a million of them spread over nine floors, and a little typed index card for each one. Spent many a pleasant, interesting, exciting or frustrating hour there. Good times. But I prefer today.

[Svartalf]

I do think that there were plenty messageboards, including ones catering to civilian hobbies, housed in university net computers as early as the mid 80s, which is roughly 30 years ago

[Hermit]

I do think that there were plenty messageboards, including ones catering to civilian hobbies, housed in university net computers as early as the mid 80s, which is roughly 30 years ago

Most likely. I went to uni in the 1970's, which is also the decade I bought a copy of the EB.

[Svartalf]

Can't say for sure, of course, as I'm a johnny come lately when it comes to computers, having eventually decided to get siliconned up for Xmas of 95. Even my kid brother got to it before I did when he bought an Amstrad (whereas i waited for the win95 boom, and unknown to me the WWW was already in existence)

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I do think that there were plenty messageboards, including ones catering to civilian hobbies, housed in university net computers as early as the mid 80s, which is roughly 30 years ago

Most likely. I went to uni in the 1970's, which is also the decade I bought a copy of the EB.

There was a thundering herd of them by the time I found USENET, in 1990.

[Coito ergo sum]

I do think that there were plenty messageboards, including ones catering to civilian hobbies, housed in university net computers as early as the mid 80s, which is roughly 30 years ago

30 years ago was 1982, and hardly anyone had a personal computer. So, "plenty" being a relative term...as compared to the population, there was a very small percentage of people who knew what a message board was (other than one that you thumb-tacked little bits of paper to on the wall), and an even smaller percentage who actually had a computer, and an even smaller percentage of computer owners who participated in message boards.

I think in 1982 it was still common for college computer classes to teach the concepts of "card reader" (punch card) computers, and punch tape computers.

Even in 1991, the vast majority of people were not "online" and being "online" (remember, "are you online?" being a common question?), and still most people did not own personal computers yet.

In 1980 and 1981, I knew one person who had the capacity to do anything via anything remotely "online." That was the father of a close friend of mine who had one of those TRS-80 systems, and it could connect to other computers via a telephone where you stick the physical handset (the old school handset with the one circular part to put by your ear and the other one to talk into, and you gripped it in the middle) -- so, it wasn't even wired directly, the computers literally talked to each other via beeps and buzzes something like how a fax machine sounds.

I was in college in the late 1980s, and everyone had computers, but nobody was "online" in any way, or if they were it wasn't many people. Perhaps some of the really advanced computer folks were. Mostly, the computers were used for word processing, learning how to use computers, and running some programs in various science and engineering classes, and playing Tetris while stoned.

[klr]

I do think that there were plenty messageboards, including ones catering to civilian hobbies, housed in university net computers as early as the mid 80s, which is roughly 30 years ago

30 years ago was 1982, and hardly anyone had a personal computer. So, "plenty" being a relative term...as compared to the population, there was a very small percentage of people who knew what a message board was (other than one that you thumb-tacked little bits of paper to on the wall), and an even smaller percentage who actually had a computer, and an even smaller percentage of computer owners who participated in message boards.

I think in 1982 it was still common for college computer classes to teach the concepts of "card reader" (punch card) computers, and punch tape computers.

Even in 1991, the vast majority of people were not "online" and being "online" (remember, "are you online?" being a common question?), and still most people did not own personal computers yet.

In 1980 and 1981, I knew one person who had the capacity to do anything via anything remotely "online." That was the father of a close friend of mine who had one of those TRS-80 systems, and it could connect to other computers via a telephone where you stick the physical handset (the old school handset with the one circular part to put by your ear and the other one to talk into, and you gripped it in the middle) -- so, it wasn't even wired directly, the computers literally talked to each other via beeps and buzzes something like how a fax machine sounds.

I was in college in the late 1980s, and everyone had computers, but nobody was "online" in any way, or if they were it wasn't many people. Perhaps some of the really advanced computer folks were. Mostly, the computers were used for word processing, learning how to use computers, and running some programs in various science and engineering classes, and playing Tetris while stoned.

This is all true (except for being stoned while playing Tetris ), but nonetheless, the writing was on the wall even before the world wide web took flight. The first big threat to the printed medium was the optical disc - Asimov foresaw this in Foundation's Edge IIRC. CD drives were available back in the early 80's, although very expensive. But it was obvious that cost would go down.

Most organizations just don't have such a long time frame reaching decades into the future.

[Coito ergo sum]

Foundation's Edge was written in 1982.

[maiforpeace]

I do think that there were plenty messageboards, including ones catering to civilian hobbies, housed in university net computers as early as the mid 80s, which is roughly 30 years ago

30 years ago was 1982, and hardly anyone had a personal computer. So, "plenty" being a relative term...as compared to the population, there was a very small percentage of people who knew what a message board was (other than one that you thumb-tacked little bits of paper to on the wall), and an even smaller percentage who actually had a computer, and an even smaller percentage of computer owners who participated in message boards.

I think in 1982 it was still common for college computer classes to teach the concepts of "card reader" (punch card) computers, and punch tape computers.

Even in 1991, the vast majority of people were not "online" and being "online" (remember, "are you online?" being a common question?), and still most people did not own personal computers yet.

In 1980 and 1981, I knew one person who had the capacity to do anything via anything remotely "online." That was the father of a close friend of mine who had one of those TRS-80 systems, and it could connect to other computers via a telephone where you stick the physical handset (the old school handset with the one circular part to put by your ear and the other one to talk into, and you gripped it in the middle) -- so, it wasn't even wired directly, the computers literally talked to each other via beeps and buzzes something like how a fax machine sounds.

I was in college in the late 1980s, and everyone had computers, but nobody was "online" in any way, or if they were it wasn't many people. Perhaps some of the really advanced computer folks were. Mostly, the computers were used for word processing, learning how to use computers, and running some programs in various science and engineering classes, and playing Tetris while stoned.

This.

I lived in the Silicon Valley in the seventies, eighties and nineties...everything CES says here is accurate. I remember using the dreaded punch card for my statistics class at UCSB in 1984. Message boards? Unheard of.

Wow, I just agreed with CES. It's a banner day.