The cross-referenced volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica announced Tuesday, that they will stop its print publish.
1768, when Andrew Bell a Scottish engraver and a printer named Colin Macfarquhar started to create this reference book known as Encyclopaedia Britanica.This book is the main display of the book shelves in libraries,offices and homes for 244 years will finally stop their print publish.This would only mean that the sales of this reference book had go down as the readers this days abandoned the old and traditional way of researching.
Today,readers and researchers use Google and Wikipedia on Internets, and Libraries are now being forgotten.Chicago publisher said that they will focus on selling their reference work to subscriber through Internet and applications for tablet or smartphones.
The president of the Encyclopaedia Britanica President Jorge Cauz said,"This is not a sad day at Britannica,We are fully digital company."
Stopping the print production of Britannica has been in the work for two years,as its product becomes primarily online for the last twenty years.The company said that its print peak sales was on 1990 when they sold over 120,000 printed sets.It was found out that 3,500 sets remain unsold of over 12,000 sets printed in 2010.
Britannica's 85% of revenues is from the sale of instructional programs and electronic books science,math and humanities.15% from reference-related content.
Being at online,Britannica have to make over Wikipedia(The free encyclopedia)as it is the number one rank in Google result.For only 0.5% or less of searchers end up on their site.However,Jorge Cauz said that despite of their low ranking in Google search engine,they maintained their profit.
"We are putting more free content out there so that we can attract the casual knowledge seeker," he said.
For some,there is no surprise about the companies decision to stop their print publishing.As many of us know that the process of learning,storing and sharing of knowledge is changing.
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