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Britannica - would you buy it on (say) Kindle or Nook?

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40hz:
Of course once it's purely electronic it would make it much easier to enforce censorship over it. I could imagine a situation where different versions could easily be made to accommodate local political and religious authorities. I'd imagine something like the story of the Crusades being treated differently in an Iranian edition as opposed to a UK edition. Same goes for treatments of economic and political subjects.

Hmm... I can see it now...Encyclopedia Britannica - available in Standard Western, Mideastern, Muslim, Socialist, Christian Conservative, and North Korean editions - with more to follow...

Next comes something like this...

News update: last week authorities disabled all electronic use of the Encyclopedia Britannica in _______ after determining the collection was "rife" with what were characterized as "severe factual errors" and "morally offensive" articles and topics. Authorities further stated that they were opposed to censorship in any form and only reluctantly took this action in order that school children not be put "at risk."

Authorities and the publishers of the Encyclopedia Britannica met behind closed doors yesterday with the goal of resolving their differences and working out a mutually acceptable "accommodation" in order that sales and use of the Britannica collection could resume as quickly as possible...
 :huh:

CWuestefeld:
I've got a handheld "WikiReader" device that holds a complete (text-only) copy of WikiPedia. I take it with me whenever we go on trips, so we can research the background story behind anything we might run across.

For example, a couple of weeks ago on vacation we met an astronomer who brought with him a 12" reflector telescope (wow!), and showed us a bunch of things in the sky. We were able to go back to our rooms and read more about "earthshine" and things like that. And the kicker is that, because we were in Jamaica, cellular data rates were astronomical, so our little offline reader was by far the most practical solution.

And, of course, being offline solves 40hz's concerns as well.

superboyac:
CW...you got it!  I was in the middle of preparing a setup like that myself.  I recently tried out Britannica's software version of their encyclopaedia.  It's useless, don't bother.

I will agree with 40 on browsing the real deal books.  I spend a lot of my youth getting distracted in those pages.  By the time I got to whatever article it was that made me open the book in the first place, I had read 5-6 things along the way.  There's something great about that.

superboyac:
I mean, at this point, Britannica is just dying a relatively quick death.  Who really needs it?  Nobody wants or needs your books, anything you put online will be inferior to wikipedia, so either figure out a way to fill a need that is currently unfilled, or...goodbye.

Highlights and Advantages of Digital Products?
Um...idiots.  Who is this written for?  We've been using digital products for a decade now.  When was this written...1995?  Get over yourself...I'm pretty sure you don't need to explain to people the advantages of digital products in freaking 2012.  You do realize that wikipedia is a very popular website... ;)

Quality is still Number 1 at Britannica
Honestly, I could care less.  Wikipedia, google, discussion forums...(I'd also add the very cool "Talk" tab on wikipedia pages that allows you to read and follow the debates regarding the accuracy of the facts).  Do i really care about the opaque quality control methods of a company that has become obsolete?

Whatever...all I got out of that article was how clueless Britannica is.

Carol Haynes:
I think Britannica as an eBook would be pretty poor given that images aren't well handled on Kindle etc.

A subscription based website (which is what they have now) is probably the most realistic model. DVD is another way but having to buy every couple of years to keep up to date is annoying - is suppose now they could move to a USB device format with an update subscription service.

Having said that since Britannica ceased to be a British publication they seem to be all about money!

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