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

[phoebe ayers]

On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 5:22 PM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 3:49 PM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2010's 32-volume set will be its last.  (Now I want to get one, to
>> replace my old set!)  Future versions will be digital only.
>>
>> http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/after-244-years-encyclopaedia-britannica-stops-the-presses/?smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto
>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/13/encyclopedia-britannica-halts-print-publication
>>
>
> I don't use it in print, haven't for years, and have been expecting
> something like this for a while, but am still surprisingly saddened by
> it too; there's something about the shelf of volumes that encapsulates
> the world's knowledge that sort of symbolizes the whole idea of a
> library to 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? Was a love of print encyclopedias part of your
> motivation or interest in becoming a Wikipedian? Is there any value in
> them still? Will you miss it?

All,

This has been one of our best threads in a long, long time :) Thank
you all for sharing your stories.

This is what I was working on, it just went up on the site 5 minutes ago:
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/14/britannica-define-outdated/if-you-liked-britannica-youll-love-wikipedia

Thank you so much to Nathan for letting me use his quote, and to SJ
for a little midnight copyediting help -- it was short notice :) I
would have including more quotes but I was already 100 words over
limit, lol!

But reading this thread made me think that there is actually a much
longer piece that could be written with all of these anecdotes about
encyclopedias -- I'd love to work on an essay about our experiences.
Maybe on meta, if anyone else is interested.

thanks,
phoebe