Encyclopædia Britannica is ending its print edition, after 244 years.

I spent many happy hours lost within the pages, an online or digital reference just is not the same.

The Auld Grump

got a printed version in 1976. It's still very current today except in electronics.
As you say, Auld, it shall be missed. Like you I find the online version a poor substitute for the printed book. But times move on.

I would not trust a 1976 version on a number of things, I would say Many Many sciences... like oh Genetics/Molecular Biology are VERY out of date, PCR one of the most powerfull tools of molbio wasn't developed till 1983, to name one thing, and siRNA wasn't discovered till really 2000 (1999). So sorry there is more than electronics, i would say any science is not to be trusted from a book 35+ years old.

It was always nice to have on the shelf, I used to have a 1800 edition and it was a lovely set of books.

What a bummer--I grew up surrounded by those encyclopedias and I spent many hours just reading through them. I've got a lot of fond memories of those books.

I have fond memories of them too, but to be honest, my shelves are consumed by these 4th edition hardcovers! My house is only big enough for one massive volume of stuff...

I have always dreamed of having an actual study, or small library. Wall to wall (floor to ceiling) books. An old edition of these plus a newer one would be right at home there.

I remember reading these as a kid, but I haven't cracked one in years.

Given a choice between Encyclopædia Britannica and 4th edition D&D, I would go with Encyclopædia Britannica.... then again, given the choice between Tom Swift and 4th edition, I would take Tom Swift. (Little known bit of trivia - Taser stands for Thomas Alva Swift's Electric Rifle - the inventor of the Taser is also a fan of Tom Swift.) I don't have any space on my shelves taken up by 4e. 3.X/Pathfinder would share space with Encyclopædia Britannica - right now I have an Encyclopedia Americana that I bought cheap. I use the encyclopedia when working on material for games.

"Dullard: Someone who looks up a thing in the encyclopedia, turns directly to the entry, reads it, and then closes the book.” ― Philip José Farmer

Online and digital searching is faster, but you miss out on being distracted by all the other wonders that you encounter when searching through the book.

Now Encyclopædia Britannica has to compete with the likes of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is fun, but not what I would consider rigorous in regards to its fact checking.

In a weird way TV Tropes has more of the feel of a good encyclopedia - the cross references allow you to lose track of time. What you go in to look for is not necessarily what you find most valuable.

One of the plots in my Fallout tabletop game is started when the Brotherhood of Steel kills a boy's family in order to retrieve an 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (still considered by many to be the best encyclopedia ever printed). The boy grows up to become one of the villains in the campaign, with an ax to grind about the Brotherhood. In a back room he has a blood stained Encyclopædia Britannica and some shattered power armor helmets....

The Auld Grump

I wonder if that's why we build little miniature libraries and places in some part fulfilling our dreams

the down side of wiki

Who's building mini ones? We built a real library then realized that even with the two story library wall we still couldn't put all our hardcovers there.


Of course that may have something to do with being married to a librarian

/jealous

I actually SOLD the EB as a member of their local salesgroup back in 1982[?]. We ran on leadcards sent to us from the Chicago office who generated them from persons who had mailed in the "I'm interested - send me more information" postcards. We also ran some booths at trade shows. It was only a few summer months and I only made enough to make expenses before I had to go on to something else. But, ah, the memories... like the time a foreign student at a university wanted the $12,000 green leather ultimate limited edition - but his financial sponsor wouldn't sign off on it! (For that, if I had gotten it, my manager said he would have driven us up to Chicago and hand delivered the order! It was that big of a thing in the salesmen circle.]

R.I.P. ol' girl!

P.S. I have a (small) collection of encyclopedias...
"Is that wierd, or what?" - Mr.Universe
One never knows what data is going to be lost in subsequent editions...
"Well, there is only so much room in the Book." - Ford Prefect

It is all good till a solar flare hits, And boom all the electronics are gone. Some kid says dad why do birds fly, Ummm! Paper is better. Damn wikipedia, It is not factual and full of mistakes.

I know we're supposed to be moving toward being green and conservation, but I just prefer dead tree products over electronic versions. Now, having a tablet makes me like electronic versions a little better, but there's just something about the feel and smell of a book!

It is wonderful to actually have a library. One thing that bothers me is that it is not something you can save if there is a fire or other disaster. Although my library was covered by my insurance, many books had passed out of print. I did have the foresight however to keep the few rare books I had at the bank.

I wish I could have all of the books of my present library scanned into PDF. It would be an exhausting project that I can't do at this point.

One question you will always be asked if you have a library is, "Have you read all these books?" It seems they don't understand that readers actually do read them as they are purchased. Librarys are built over time, decades; they don't mystically appear. I hate that question.

Anyway, 1t is sad that Britanica will now be forever out of print. So much is going out of print.

Ah yes, fire is the bane of books! I've got quite an extensive library myself, mostly sci-fi novels, but I have an old World Book Encyclopedia as part of it! Wish I had bought a Britannica, had the chance years ago, but didn't have the funds at the time!

It is wonderful to actually have a library. One thing that bothers me is that it is not something you can save if there is a fire or other disaster. Although my library was covered by my insurance, many books had passed out of print. I did have the foresight however to keep the few rare books I had at the bank.


Exactly people today forget the value that was place on books, To be able to pass on knowledge, It is amazing to tell my grandson how to make something in my fashion by my hand, As if I am there. Amazing.

But today with the internet and the press and mass literacy people do not appreciate how well we have it.

I always answer that question with a "YES", then look them in their eyes to confirm.
They seem to reduce in height by about 3 feet (1metre) at that point.

While I didn't say that origianlly, I will say that I personally have not read every page of my dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias and textbooks. I have read all of the novels but a select few though (the ones in queue to be read).

[/quote]While I didn't say that origianlly, I will say that I personally have not read every page of my dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias and textbooks. I have read all of the novels but a select few though (the ones in queue to be read).[/quote]

::grinning:: Reference books are of course a different matter.

My sister told me I might buy a Kindle and start the process of making my library as much as I can an electronic one instead of one of square footage and walls of bookcases. I could re-purpose a huge room ( don't know what I'd use that space for) but if fire or flood should strike I could just carry out my library in my purse. I like that idea!

@ Talae: My queue of books [and vids] is humongous - it would take me being laid up in the hospital have a year to catch up! (And then everyone here were being so *helpful* by adding a combined treasury of Steampunk novels in another thread...)

@ DeltaIce: You'll have to wait for the future technology of eScratchNSniff to get that wonderful real-book smell - but then think of what it would do to the inside of your purse

After using my Britannica last night (first time in a while) to research historical background for a new RPG character, I checked my print date: 1986! Dang! Now I'm wanting to break down and buy this last print edition - only in part to say "I have the LAST Britannica in my collection..." [And for some reason I always want to spell it 'Brittanica'.]

To have that leather smell of a book binding I'll just make a leather case for the kindle.

I am doing this now. The wonderful free options (through the Kindle and other legal resources) have helped me to grow my digital collection to well over 300 unique publications (I feel weird calling them books). I have a library of several thousand and I have begun sorting the items into piles: available free on Kindle, available paid on Kindle, and not available on Kindle. Most of the not-availables are still in my collection but there are some I have parted ways with. the frees have all been acquired and the paids are acquired as I can.

Edit: Fixed quoting.

I have a set of Britannicas that were bought back in 1980. Really like them. Did not keep up the yearbooks, though, so they became more and more outdated as the decades rolled by.

A good source of copyright free novels and such is Project Gutenberg. Lots of Wells, Verne, Burroughs, Dickens, Twain, &ca offered. There is a Project Gutenberg Australia that has some books not available elsewhere. The vast majority of the books in electronic form that I have downloaded from Project Gutenberg I already have in paperback and/or hard cover . It is kind of convenient to be able to load them on the Kindle or into some e-reader program and search for specific phrases or names.

Your method of sorting your books is a good one ... I'll try that. There are some periodicals I'd like to have in electronic format as well.
I like that Kimdle will also handle my audio books.

Gutenberg will help with the out of print problem (I especially like classic sfi-fi). I had forgotten that source. Well, it is going to take some time and cost but it will be worth it.

Thanks! Let me know how it goes.

A say day indeed. Another tolling of the death knell for the intelligence and education of Americans. Both my grandparents had sets of encyclopedias. Okay not Britannica, but they were frugal and made due. I remember spending time paging through them. Even learned how to play chess because of them (surprised my father to no end ). *moment of silence*