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- CHICAGO - The entire Encyclopaedia
Britannica, a 32-volume set that sells for $1,250 in book form, has been
placed on the Internet free of charge, the publishers of the 231-year-old
reference work announced Tuesday.
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- Company spokesman Tom Panelas said the development did
not mean Britannica was giving up the compact disc versions of the reference
work or the printed word " sold door-to-door for decades by salesmen
who urged parents to put the world's knowledge on the home bookshelf with
easy monthly payments.
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- He said the Chicago-based company still planned to publish
a new 40-volume set "and will continue to serve that market.''
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- But Tuesday's announcement was a capitulation of sorts
for a company caught swimming upstream against the information river. It
entered the CD and online markets later than others and the cost of its
product in disc form was higher than some other computer-driven encyclopedias.
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- The new company will be supported by advertising revenue
from the site.
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- "This is a momentous day for knowledge seekers everywhere,''
said Don Yannias, chief executive of Britannica.com Inc., a new company
owned by the publisher and named for the Internet site that carries the
material.
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- "Purchasing Encyclopaedia Britannica was once a
major milestone in a family's life, but today we are fulfilling our promise
to make it more accessible to more people worldwide,'' he said.
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- "Now everyone with access to the Internet can use
Britannica.com as they wish, not only for the encyclopedia, but for the
top-quality information and services we offer,'' he added.
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- In addition to the full text of Britannica, the site
- www.britannica.com - carries news feeds from newspapers and news wires
around the world; selected articles from more than 70 popular magazines
including Esquire, Sports Illustrated, and The Economist; and a searchable
directory of the Web's best sites, chosen by Britannica's editors.
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- Britannica's first edition was issued in 100 parts from
1768 to 1771 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the brainchild of three Scotsmen.
It calls itself the "oldest continuously published reference work
in the English language.''
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- Over the years the publishers bought material from some
of the most distinguished scholars and authors of the day " Thomas
Malthus, Sir Walter Scott, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, G. K. Chesterton
and George Bernard Shaw among them.
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- The company came under U.S. ownership in 1901 and was
later acquired by Chicago-based Sears, Roebuck and Co. In the 1940s it
was bought by William Benton, retired co-founder of the advertising firm
Benton and Bowles.
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- In 1995 the company, which reportedly had been losing
money for several years, was sold to an investment group led by Swiss businessman
Jacob Safra for undisclosed terms by the William Benton Foundation, which
operated at the University of Chicago.
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- Analysts said at the time it was worth as much as $500
million.
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