A sad day for print

[Chris A.]

Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print

I think I'll order the final set for my 2 year old son.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/14/the-encyclopaedia-britannica-is-going-out-of-print/

 

[Kingman]

GREAT!! I'm scheduled to be in your neighborhood this week. I'm almost at quota!

I also have some Fuller brushes too.

 

[twobjshelbys]

This is a bad thing as it is an alarming trend. Newspapers are going "print free" too.

A few observations:

(1) We learned about ancient civilizations from their printings. Art on cave walls, carved pieces of stone, scrolls on paper and velum.

(2) No digital form has been around for more than a handful of years. How long was Beta around? Can you buy a Beta player? VHS is all but gone? Old stuff is still there and players are getting rarer. CD as a media is waning, and DVD is going to BluRay. BluRay will die some day too. So far optical players do strive for backward compatibility but that is a blip in history. What happens to all that digital media in 200 years?

How will future generations learn (from) what we did in 200 or 1000 years? It is not valid to assume "the cloud" will survive and at some point data on the cloud will become inaccessible.

I'm sure archivists care about this. I'll let them lose sleep over it but it certainly makes me wonder.

I'm slowly converting all of my film to digital (using a Coolscan 9000 scanner) but I will NOT destroy the originals.

I'm still wrestling with how to organize several thousand images from last summer's Grand Canyon Colorado River adventure. One thing I'm relatively certain of: Whatever subset of photos I present will also be printed (using the digital to print machines at Walgreens or Sam's) and placed in an album. At least there will be paper images to look at in 200 years.

I wonder what Ansel Adams would think of a digital world.

 

[GT38]

I wonder what Ansel Adams would think of a digital world.

Whatever he might think, he'd likely utilize the best tools available to create his art.

(I'm going to look for my old 8-track tapes now :biggrin)

 

[GTNJ]

"Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print"

That really is a shame.

 

[Chris A.]

As I mentioned I have a 2 year old son. And what I’m wondering is in the future when I see him studying in the living room on the computer what else will be distracting him? Who’s marketing to him? What’s the next facebook, etc.?

But if he had an encyclopedia in his hands I know he’ll be entrenched in whatever subject he started on…hopefully just a little more focused. I know for myself I get engaged in a book to a much better depth than my computer screen.

 

[Piccola]

I doubt a lot of kids today even know what an encyclopedia is, and many have never been to a library. Interesting topic Chris. I couple of days ago I was called "old school" because I don't want to get a Nook. I still enjoy taking a trip to the library or bookstore and browsing through the selection. I like the smell of a new book when I first open it. I like the process of turning the pages and noticing my progress with a colorful bookmark... Hopefully books are more to my future kids and grandkids than something historical that they saw once in a museum.

 

[KJRGT]

Very sad news indeed.
I can't imagine how many hours I spent with my encyclopeadias growing up doing homework assignments.

 

[HHGT]

As I mentioned I have a 2 year old son. And what I’m wondering is in the future when I see him studying in the living room on the computer what else will be distracting him? Who’s marketing to him? What’s the next facebook, etc.?

But if he had an encyclopedia in his hands I know he’ll be entrenched in whatever subject he started on…hopefully just a little more focused. I know for myself I get engaged in a book to a much better depth than my computer screen.

Chris, my one advise to you is not to give him electronic gadgets that will think for him. Big difference between technology that makes your life easier and one that makes you lazy and dependent. The Department of Defense did a huge study on this and applications for soldiers are being developed with this approach in mind.

As far as as Britannica goes, I'm just happy it was not Playboy.