This is a sad week for those of us who grew up loving books.  The Encyclopedia Britannica is no longer going to be printed.  News story here  It will continue as an online source and try to compete with Google and Wikipedia, and it might, but this is the end of the printed collection of information.

So moving on what will be next to go?  All of it.  The age of print is over.  The presses, libraries, bookstores and publishers as we know them are all doomed within a generation.  Just like Kodak film was doomed when digital photography was invented.  They can’t be saved.  Digital books will keep the format alive for a few generations but even that is doomed.  I know you don’t like to hear this but the printed book is as over as the livery stable in 1912.  There is nothing you can do about it.

If young people want entertainment they will watch a show on their iPads.  If they want information they will Google.  And if they want to understand a subject they will use new interactive formats that combine documentary film with feedback loops, illustrations, charts and source material.

The technology of movable type created the printed book which shaped the way we learn about the world.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.  The Medieval world was shaped by the scribe.  Access to information was limited and a society developed that favored those who could read and write.  Now because of printing almost everyone can read and write.  So what.  The future will create amazing new ways of doing what books have done for the last 500 or so years.

My advise if you are in the printing business:  Sell your presses! Now!  Let someone else go down with the ship.  However all is not lost. And here again the analogy to the beginning of the automobile era is instructive.  The end of the livery stable was also the beginning of the age of the mechanic,the auto dealer, the macadam road builder and lot more.  And so it will be in this era.  The book, like the horse, will be gone but as costs goes down the need for the new forms of entertainment and information will increase.  What a wonderful time to be in the new media.

Encyclopedia Britannica RIP you served us well.