Britannica has announced that the 2010 edition would be the last in the series. The reason: It cannot face digital competition from Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia. It is an acknowledgement of the realities of the digital age

The digital word has won a huge battle over the printed word. After 244 years, the presses that printed the Encyclopaedia Britannica have fallen silent.

Britannica was the ultimate reference book for two and a half centuries. If you, me and the man in the street wanted to know anything about anything, the Encyclopaedia Britannica was the first and last place to get authentic information written simply by experts in each field.

The company that produced Britannica has announced that the 2010 edition would be the last in the series. The reason: It cannot face digital competition from Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia. It is an acknowledgement of the realities of the digital age.

The New York Times quoted a top executive of Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc, the Chicago-based US subsidiary of the British parent, as saying “It’s a rite of passage in this new era.”

The spokesman said in an interview to New York Times: “Some people will feel sad about it and nostalgic about it. But we have a better tool now. The website is continuously updated, it’s much more expansive and it has multimedia.”

The 2010 print edition of Britannica has 32 volumes that weigh 129 pounds. It costs $1,395. The last print version includes new entries on global warming and the Human Genome Project.

Britannica will now focus primarily on its online encyclopaedias and educational curriculum for schools.

 The Times said Wikipedia has moved a long way toward “replacing the authority of experts with the wisdom of the crowds.” The site is now written and edited by thousands of contributors and is accepted as a largely accurate and comprehensive source, even by many scholars and academics.

Wikipedia also meets the 21st century requirement of providing instantly updated material. It has nearly four million articles in English, including some on pop culture that Britannica would not touch.

Britannica’s competitive strength comes from its prestigious sources, its carefully edited entries and the trust that was tied to the brand.

The company spokesman told the Times: “We have very different value propositions. Britannica is going to be smaller. We cannot deal with every single cartoon character; we cannot deal with every love life of every celebrity. But we need to have an alternative where facts really matter. Britannica won’t be as large as before, but it will always be factually correct.”

(R Vijayaraghavan has been a professional journalist for more than four decades, specialising in finance, business and politics. He conceived and helped to launch Business Line, the financial daily of The Hindu group. He can be contacted at [email protected].)