[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Stopping the presses: Britannica to stop printing books

[Béria Lima]

My answers to Phoebe questions.  (I tryed to keep it short to not create a
lot of problems to read, if you need a bigger version you can ask me) :)


> *I've been asked to write a short editorial about this development from a
> Wikipedian's perspective and am curious about (and would love to include)
> other Wikimedian experiences -- did you use print encyclopedias as a kid?
> *


Yes. My school had the 15th Edition of
Britannica<http://Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica#1974.E2.80.931994>and I
do remember I used them a lot to learn about pretty much
everything... At some time I even developed the crazy idea of read the full
colletion. I gave up in the middle of book 2, but still was a very fun
thing to do ;)

*Was a love of print encyclopedias part of your motivation or interest in
> becoming a Wikipedian?
> *


I guess in part it was. I had the habit of start every single school
project by looking into Britannica to get the basis for the job, and that
is pretty much what leads me to Wikipedia (an paper on a subject Britannica
doesn't had and I was forced to look online for it)

*Is there any value in them still? Will you miss it?*
>

I will actually look for a copy of the 15th edition (for sentimental
reasons) to buy before they get too rare and too expensive :D Of course I
will miss it! If Britannica is gone we will need to start printing
Wikipedia ;-)
_____
*
*

*[image: Inline images 1]*

*Béria Lima*

* *

* Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano.*

 *Ajude-nos a construir esse sonho.* <http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos>**







*
** <http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos>*


On 14 March 2012 02:01, Keegan Peterzell <keegan.wiki em gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 7:22 PM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki em gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > I've been asked to write a short editorial about this development from
> > a Wikipedian's perspective and am curious about (and would love to
> > include) other Wikimedian experiences -- did you use print
> > encyclopedias as a kid?
>
>
> I loved encyclopedias as a kid.  My parents had a study hour for my sister
> and myself every school night to work on homework or, if that was do, do
> something educational.  I would do my homework early to spend the hour
> before bed reading our copy of World Book.
>
>
> > Was a love of print encyclopedias part of your
> > motivation or interest in becoming a Wikipedian?
>
>
> It was my ability to edit it or complain, really.  I registered my
> account on the English Wikipedia in 2005 after fixing typos here and there
> for a couple years in order to complain about the Main Page Featured
> Article, History of Alaska.  The article was all messed up from an
> ill-formatted edit, and I wanted to bring it to attention.  I figured it's
> only fair to have an account to complain.  Since then I've been working on
> support an maintenance to help the content others create.  I'm not an
> article writer, so a fantastic feature of Wikipedia is that there are ways
> to contribute if this is not your talent.
>
> The fundamental difference between this and my beloved paper encyclopedias
> was that you couldn't ask questions or fix something that was wrong.  Those
> companies would issue an annual update and corrections, but that's a little
> too late.  Placing the encyclopedia in the hands of the wiki format was a
> brilliant move by Larry Sanger, it gave the encyclopedia geek white-out and
> a pen.
>
>
> > Is there any value in
> > them still? Will you miss it?
> >
>
> I will miss it in the way that mine and previous generations value the
> touch, weight, and volume of books.  It's a lot more comprehensible to
> appreciate the work it takes in writing an encyclopedia when 32 volumes are
> dwarfed by what you can create with space on the web.  You can't physically
> measure the work put into the words.  But I weigh it out to future
> generations not having this appreciate and just feel old when I imagine
> myself making this speech in the future to my kid(s).
>
> --
> ~Keegan
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
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