End of an Era

In the "signs-of-the-times" department, I heard on the news yesterday that after 244 years the Encyclopedia Britannica is ceasing publication.

While I realize this is inevitable, I find it regrettable. After all, for a long time whenever someone needed information, what did they do? They went to their bookshelf and pulled out the appropriate volume of their encyclopedia and looked it up.

Today of course you log on to Google and there it is.

I still have a considerable number of reference books on shelves around my house. I have almanacs, atlases, dictionaries and other kinds of books dealing with specific topics. I like using them for questions or just perusing them out of general interest or even sharing them with grand children.

I realize however that I in no way represent the norm. The homes of my children and most of my friends have very little in the way of reading material laying around or even on shelves and I'm sure that's true of most people these days.

All hail the internet.