Where is britannica published

The 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' is considered to be one of the enduring achievements of the Scottish Enlightenment. First issued in , 'Britannica' has its origins in Edinburgh. The first edition was issued in weekly parts, which eventually took three years to produce, and when completed in it consisted of three volumes. Bell, who had established his reputation as an engraver for the the 'Scots Magazine', produced all copperplate illustrations.

William Smellie was editor of the first edition. He too had worked for the 'Scots Magazine', which he edited for five years from Beyond its acclaimed institutions of higher learning, their libraries and presses, and its museums, the city is also home to the respected Newberry Library, the American Library Association, the Great Books Foundation, and two of the most popular encyclopedias of the last few centuries: World Book, which celebrated its one hundredth anniversary last year, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which published its first volume years ago.

Sears head and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald saved the Britannica from financial difficulties twice. Within three years, ownership reverted to the widow and brother-in-law of the previous publisher, who set about publishing a supplement to the current edition that included such famed contributors as Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, W.

But Rosenwald and Sears once again bought the Encyclopaedia in in order to provide the significant financial backing that would be required to issue a completely new edition, an update that was badly needed; the previous comprehensive edition dated from and , before the drastic upheavals of the First World War. The new edition that resulted was a vast undertaking, with some fifty associate editors and 45, articles written by 3, contributors, including Rosenwald himself, who wrote part of the article on philanthropy.

It also marked significant changes in how the Encyclopaedia was published and sold, and the rise of the Britannica as a middle-class icon. In , a University of Chicago graduate and Sears corporate leader named Elkan Harrison Powell became head of the Encyclopaedia, despite lacking any publishing experience.

He instituted a policy of continuous revision so that up-to-date sets could be bought every year; previously, new information would not be included until another edition came out, which often took about twenty years. Powell also started door-to-door sales, sending out traveling salesman to offer the capacious set of volumes to families across America on monthly installment plans.

These innovations helped transform the Britannica into a status symbol akin to a car or television set in the s. The intellectual aura offered by the Britannica was further enhanced in the s when it became associated with the University of Chicago. Mortimer Adler was responsible for the unusual structure of the Britannica's final edition, which took the largest single private investment in publishing at the time.

In fact, our employees held a party the day of the announcement, celebrating the fact that Britannica was still a growing and viable company. They ate the print set—in the form of a cake that pictured the volume, pound encyclopedia.

They displayed silver balloons—one for each year the encyclopedia had been in print. They toasted the departure of an old friend with champagne and the dawning of a new era with determination. We had known for some time that this day was coming. Given how little revenue the print set generated, and given that we had long ago shifted to a digital-first editorial process, the bound volumes had become a distraction and a chore to put together.

The reaction to our announcement was interesting and varied. Some people were shocked. Please, come back! But although most people seemed to know what was happening, some misunderstood.

In fact, the internet enabled us to reinvent ourselves and open new channels of business. Reports cited Wikipedia as a disruptive force. In fact, Wikipedia helped us sharpen our business strategy. I relished the irony. Whatever ripples the announcement may have made, from a business perspective the decision itself was a nonevent.

It was just the final phase of a carefully planned strategic transition that had been 35 years in the making. Preparing each new edition took years at first, and never less than a year. Then, in the s, the contents of the encyclopedia were loaded onto a mainframe computer to streamline the process of making annual updates.

The first edition of the encyclopedia took three years to create; today its reference material is digital only and updated every 20 minutes. Prescient editors and executives recognized that although digitization would make updating more efficient for print, it was only a matter of time before the medium of publication itself would be digital.

And that would represent a threat to the way we did business: selling multivolume encyclopedias to families door-to-door. So in the s we began preparing for that day, experimenting with digital technologies and even publishing the first electronic encyclopedias.

The sales model started breaking down in , as families became busier and had less patience for doorstep solicitations and as PCs began shipping with built-in CD-ROM drives—a potential knockout punch.

They also created a new demand for multimedia and interactivity, with which print-focused editorial and product teams had little experience. But by then Microsoft was bundling its CD-ROM encyclopedia, Encarta, with the vast majority of Wintel computers as a loss leader to increase the sales of home PCs by positioning them as a learning tool and a homework helper. It was a brilliant move by Microsoft and a very damaging one for Britannica.

Our direct-sales force was the wrong channel for selling the CD-ROM encyclopedia; moreover, there was no easy way to change the traditional encyclopedia business model, in which the multivolume set was a break-even proposition and the profits came from ensuing subscriptions to the yearbook, a single volume of updates. It was a bold move then: Few publishers had yet seen the web as a place to publish, let alone to put their entire flagship product.

But it was a risky move, too. Digital sales rose, but slowly, while print sales fell off a cliff. The decline was dizzying: From more than , units in , sales fell to 51, in and to just 3, in , when I arrived.