These are lonely days for encyclopedias.
At libraries, the volumes sit ignored for days on end as information-seeking patrons tap busily away at nearby computers.
Even in the warmth of a loving home, that set of hard-bound books that once represented the crown tool of a good education gets the cold shoulder.
"Sometimes my mom uses it as a coaster," says high school senior Andy Ng of Daly City, California.
In the age of the Internet, encyclopedias are gathering dust, and most families with young children don't even consider buying the space-hogging printed sets anymore. Even digital versions struggle for attention.
Michael Gray's home computer came pre-loaded with Microsoft Corp.'s reference software, Encarta, but the seventh grader from Milpitas, California, has never used it. He prefers doing research online, where information from a vast array of sources comes quickly, and for the most part, for free.
Like many students, his first Internet stop is Google.
"I find information really fast," Gray says, smiling proudly. "Within five to 10 minutes, I find a good [Web] site to work from."
But the 1990s brought recession, saddling encyclopedia makers with defaulted loans. At the same time, computers were penetrating libraries and homes. Families with school-aged children weren't thinking about whether to spring for an encyclopedia set, but rather for a computer.
Then the World Wide Web exploded, making reference works on CD-ROMs seem antiquated.
"The Internet was really the fifth nail that was driven into the coffin -- not the first," said Joe Esposito, former chief executive of Encyclopedia Britannica and now an independent consultant for digital media.
Reference providers such as Collier's and Funk & Wagnalls collapsed while others were swallowed by rivals. Britannica, the behemoth first published in 1768, saw the number of print sales drop by 60 percent from 1990 to 1996, said Jorge Cauz, Britannica's president.
The shrunken reference powers that survived the shakeout -- namely Britannica, World Book, and Grolier, the maker of Encyclopedia Americana now owned by Scholastic Library Publishing -- have now retooled to focus more on online products.
Voluminous sets are still printed, but mostly only for institutions. The encyclopedia companies are also targeting consumers with more concise and less expensive reference books.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/0 ... index.html
