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

Samuel Klein meta.sj at gmail.com
Tue Mar 13 22:49:53 UTC 2012


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

Britannica president Jorge Cauz notes that their revenue from the
online encyclopedia was already 15x that of the print version -- 15%
of their total, compared to 1%.  Most of their revenue for years has
come from other targeted educational materials.  As he says in the
Guardian,

"Today our digital database is much larger than what we can fit in the
print set. And it is up to date because we can revise it within
minutes anytime we need to, and we do it many times each day."

SJ.




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