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Britannica Retires Print Publishing

  • ABC News, Wednesday, March 14, 2012 12:46 PM

Perhaps inevitable in our digital age, Encyclopaedia Britannica is shutting down its 244-year-old book publishing business. Going forward, it will continue to publish a digital version, which can be accessed on its Webs site and through its iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch apps. The digital version costs $70 a year. Britannica has printed a new version of its reference books every two years.

The 2010 32-volume set will be the last, and still be had for $1,400. “This is a decision we have been contemplating for a few years,” Jorge Cauz, the president of Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., tells ABC News. “We decided to break the news now as it was time to release a new printed version.” Since 1768, over 7 million sets of Britannica’s bound books have been sold, according to ABC News, while a reported 12,000 copies of the last set were printed, and 4,000 still remain in inventory.

“The end of the bound encyclopedias, which lined many bookshelves for years, is certainly a sign of the times,” ABC News writes. “As services like Wikipedia gain steam, the idea of using a book to look up the history of, say, a presidential candidate seems rather quaint.”

 


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