He added that Britannica - which first published its book form encyclopedia in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768 - will hold onto a few sets so they can be displayed somehow or donated to museums.Īs they did before the announcement, the sets are selling for $1,395. The company will likely sell out by the end of the month, Duckler said. "When people thought they were going to be around forever there was no rush to buy one and then suddenly, boom, and now there is a scarcity and it's a collector's item."īritannica announced March 13 that it would stop publishing print editions of its flagship encyclopedia for the first time in 244 years and instead focus on its online encyclopedia.ĭuckler said business got so busy after that - Britannica at one point was selling the print editions at a clip of about two sets per minute - that a senior vice president and chief marketing officer jumped in and started taking orders over the phone. "We were averaging about 60 sets a week and the next thing we knew, we were selling 1,050 a week," Britannica spokesman Peter Duckler said Thursday. It has sold all but 800 of the 4,000 sets of the 32-volume 2010 edition it had left at a Kentucky warehouse, the company said. Since Britannica announced last month that it was discontinuing its print editions, the Chicago-based company said sales have skyrocketed.
Should you need help in locating or using Encyclopaedia Britannica, then please ask the Reference Librarian on duty at the reference desk for assistance.It turns out all Encyclopaedia Britannica had to do to breathe new life into the sale of its print edition was to kill it. E363 2010 The library’s catalogue record for this resource can be located using You will find Encyclopaedia Britannica on the 2nd floor of the library, shelved within the reference collection at: REF AE5. The 1911 version is particularly noteworthy for the quality of its prose, and the fact that some of the most learned people of that time served as contributors (a famous example being the physicist, Ernest Rutherford).Īs our new set of Encyclopaedia Britannica finds its way onto the shelves of the Odum Library’s reference collection, it is curious to think that it will not only serve Valdosta State University students and faculty of today as an invaluable reference resource, but will continue to be used by Odum Library patrons decades hence.
Owing to the fact that this was published prior to 1923, and is now within the public domain, you may find full-text versions of the 1911 Britannica hosted via open access resources such as Project Gutenberg.
#2010 ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA FINAL PRINT ARCHIVE#
As time passes, it seems that an older edition of Britannica quietly assumes the role of an archive of intellectual understanding of the world, in addition to retaining its primary function of being a reference resource, (notwithstanding the reality that care must be taken when using it for this latter purpose – the oft-quoted observation that a print reference book is out of date the moment it rolls off the presses is, technically, true).Īs an example, one precursor to our new set of Encyclopaedia Britannica is the famous 1911 edition. However, I’d argue that the print edition provides something which a periodically updated online version cannot: a “snapshot” (for want of a better term), of the state of knowledge that existed at the time the books, themselves, were printed. Presumably this will not change as the print edition is wholly supplanted by the (continuing) online edition. One of Britannica’s enduring qualities is the authoritative nature of the articles it contains, authored by experts in the various areas of scholarship found within the encyclopedia’s pages. However, I think the actual reason goes a little deeper. Why are so many individuals (and libraries) keen to get their hands on a last print edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica? Obviously there are book collectors, by whom such a set will be valued – additionally, there may be a certain nostalgic appeal to the print version of this resource. The newspaper reports that, “Sales staff at the 244-year-old publisher have been inundated with orders…with almost 175 copies selling a day since it was announced last month that print editions of the encyclopedia would be discontinued.” The Odum Library recently took delivery of something, which marks the end of 244 years of publishing history: a final print edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica.Īccording to a recent news story from The Guardian, we are lucky to have obtained this encyclopedic set.
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