"One of the benefits of the encyclopedia was you knew who the experts were," Hilton said. However, there was a shift from the reliance on encyclopedias, which would publish volumes with corrections or updates each year, to open-source platforms like Wikipedia that could be corrected immediately. There may not be that same sense as writing online because it could be easily edited or changed." There was a sense that it was more accurate and it certainly was authoritative as possible knowing it was put in print. The authors were some of the best researchers and writers in their fields at the time. "If you were to cite the Encyclopedia Britannica, that was good it wasn't questioned. "Encyclopedia Britannica was the standard by which all of them were judged," said Hoffman, referencing, somewhat poetically from a Wikipedia entry that Encyclopedia Britannica was written by some of the most advanced scholars, including 100 full-time editors and 4,000 contributors, which included 110 Nobel Prize winners. According to Hoffman, not many families could afford Encyclopedia Britannica, which cost $1,400 for its final set in 2010 and only wealthy people or libraries carried it, but encyclopedias like Compton's or World Book were popular choices for families wishing to enhance their children's education.Įncyclopedia Britannica continues to produce content, describing itself as "a global digital media company with products that promote knowledge and learning," and asserting that the online encyclopedia "is very much alive - more than ever, in fact, in many digital forms, online and on mobile devices." Whereas now, with the world at your fingertips by using the internet, you don't need to spend time exploring encyclopedias."īefore the internet was available in homes in the mid to late 20th century, families purchased encyclopedias, often from door-to-door salesmen at exorbitant costs. "There was a time when you couldn't connect to the rest of the world and encyclopedias gave you that insight and they contained what people knew about everything. "Encyclopedias were the original worldwide web," said Jason Hilton, associate professor secondary education and foundations of education. Students first reaction now is to Google a topic, but before (the internet) the first reaction was to go to an encyclopedia."Īlthough printed encyclopedias, particularly the most scholarly Encyclopedia Britannica, are rarely used, they once served as an essential reference tool at all levels of education, paving the way for the convenient and inexpensive digital sources. "Everyone uses the computer for a quick, initial inquiry. "By that time, it wasn't missed," said Lynn Hoffmann, SRU assistant professor of library and research services librarian. After all, Encyclopedia Britannica discontinued its printed editions in 2010 and the last edition on the shelf at SRU's Bailey Library is from 2007. The Encyclopedia Britannica is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, but at schools like Slippery Rock University few students are likely to recall ever opening an encyclopedia, let alone appreciating that the most venerated encyclopedia was first published in 1768. Encyclopedia Britannica was first published 250 years ago. “I would guess that the vast majority of articles in the Britannica remain authoritative and this indeed is true of earlier editions such as the ninth, known as ‘the scholars’ edition’ and the eleventh, the last to be published in Britain (though already American-owned).”Ĭorrection: An earlier version of this post misspelled Britannica.Lynn Hoffmann, Slippery Rock University assistant professor of library and research services librarian, accesses Bailey Library’s copy of the first edition Encyclopedia Britannica. Allan Massie pokes at Britannica’s roots: From a close (“alley” is an inexact translation, but it’ll do) in Edinburgh to a product sold door-to-door in America to its current reduced state.
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British spelling is standard at Britannica, which began in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is now run from Chicago. On Twitter: A lot of jokes in the vein of “it was still being printed?” and many misspellings of the encyclopedia’s first name. Mencken and a daily reading of The New York Times, which dated me, of course, but kept me very well informed.” “ One Less Thing to Burn for Warmth at the End of Days,” Caity Weaver writes, including a short list of items that, like Britannica’s most recent print edition, weigh 129 pounds: “Kathie Lee Gifford in September of 2010” “Two relatively large male Irish Water Spaniels.” Former editor Charlie Madigan tells Jim Romenesko that toward the end of his tenure at Britannica, he felt like “an ancient fart raised on a mixture of Roman Catholicism, H.L. As of 9:56 a.m., there have been 51 edits to Wikipedia’s Encyclopaedia Britannica entry since Tuesday, when the encyclopedia announced it would cease producing its print edition.