Petroleum replaced whale oil. The automobile made the horse and buggy obsolete. Once upon a time there were
slide rules (
above if you've never seen one), typewriters and rotary dial telephones.
For the longest time now, the world-wide web was destined to make bookstores and the U.S. Post Office almost unnecessary. Make that, absolutely dinosauric. I still remember my
book signing at Borders. It is
now bankrupt.
Well,
Encyclopedia Brittanica finally threw in the towel, at least in terms of the book version. The surprise was that I thought they had expired decades ago. First published in Edinburgh (
Scotland) in 1768, before the United States was declared, by 1800 or so it had already expanded to twenty volumes, and the final print edition was a 32 volume set in 2010, dedicated by permission to President Barack Obama and Queen Elizabeth II.
For 70 years now the publisher has tried to maintain 40 million words and half a million topics. Did you know that since 1901 this encyclopedia has been printed in the U.S., but till today maintains British spelling. Sears Roebuck once owned it, and, as you know, it has had recent problems. It is now owned by Jacqui Safra, a Swiss billionaire and actor. He also financed eight Woody Allen movies, and I think this is what he looks like from one of them.
A typical problem is that as soon as an encyclopedia is published, it is out of date.
Britannica Online, though, has 120,000 articles and is regularly updated, with DAILY features from the
New York Times and
BBC. It is not free.
Their digital version actually first appeared in 1994, although they indicated that their
first digital encyclopedia for computers came out in 1981. However,
Wikipedia is free. The
hardcover latest edition (
2010) is available from Amazon.com for $2020 (
something ironic about this price), but there are used sets for $1268. You can buy a replica of the first edition (
left) for $195.
Some of you might be familiar with
Encyclopedia Americana, which was first published in 1901 in association with
Scientific American, the magazine. They still sell their
print edition, and Amazon.com has a new set for $799, with used from $249.
However they made have made no changes since 2007. Scholastic bought
EA from Grolier in 2000 for $400 million, as they thought that their close relationship with K-8 schools would lead to these schools nationwide using their version. This has not happened, although their stock price doubled from 2000 into 2002 up to around $55. The price today is in the range of $35.
I tried to read through one of the two above (
don't remember which one) when I was quite young, but like my attempt at the
The Bible, gave up early in the effort. However, I did almost memorize the dictionary (
at least the College Board list of words) in
1958 and that changed my life.
Oh, by the way, what will replace books?
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The Dow Jones Industrials eased up 59 to 13,253, with world markets mixed. Gold rose $13/toz to $156, while the WTI crude is at $105/barrel and Dated Brent $124/barrel.
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Tropical Cyclone Lua is at 80 MPH and will strike Australia as a Category 2 storm on Saturday.
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For the record, the University of Hawaii women's softball team tonight beat the undefeated #1 team in the nation, the University of California at Berkeley, 3-1 in the tenth inning on a two run homerun by Jessica Iwata. I also learned something interesting. My pulse rate jumped from the mid-60's to 87, but my blood pressure stayed reasonable at 140/75. Just across the street, the men's baseball team edged the University of San Francisco, 2-1.
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