The Encyclopaedia Britannica Is Going Out Of Print

Some of us will certainly miss the ruggedness and portability of a print out issue, not to speak about its all-angle viewing and powerless requirements.

I hope they offer the surplus print out (two years old now) issues at a discount.

I called Britannica and they intend to keep publishing the encyclopedia in a DVD format for sale. The 2012 version seems reasonably priced. The search function of digital media is the biggest plus to electronic encyclopedias. A strong second is the space savings. I still prefer hard copies in most instances, for ease of reading and as an archival backup, when it comes to knowledge containers.

Many years ago, when wandering in a library, I wondered just how much knowledge is redundant. I think this question dawned on me while walking down the Civil War Aisle! I mean, all the books about Civil War battles... how much in any one book is only in that book? It's common sense. Look at the bibliography of any book (if it has one) and the author has utilized other books to write the one your holding in your hand. Mostly a repackaging of existent knowledge. Do you really want to read all the books on Civil War battles to find out what is new (or omitted) in any one of them? If you are a writer/historian, you almost have to, I guess. That, in itself, would discourage me from wanting to write that kind of book.

Wouldn't it be nice to have all the indexes of all the books every printed in a searchable database, which could be expanded by readers/browsers, similar to Wikipedia entries? I think it would lead to an appreciation of just how little, book-type knowledge, can truly be learned in one life.