Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print after 244 years, after failing to compete with online resources such as Wikipedia.
According to the New York Times, publisher Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. has announced that the 32-volume 2010 edition will be the final printed edition of the encyclopaedia, with the company intending to focus on producing educational material for schools and libraries.
The decision was prompted by poor sales of the 2010 edition, with only 8,000 sets sold, and a further 4,000 sets gathering dust in a warehouse. In contrast, as recently as 1990, the company claimed sales of 120,000 sets per annum in the United States alone.
The news comes after Kodak, another once dominant company that failed to adapt to the online world, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
