Britannica sold by Benton Foundation (2024)

FAQs

Who bought Britannica? ›

In 1996 Britannica was sold to financier Jacob E. Safra, under whose leadership the company began a major restructuring.

In the 21st century, the Britannica suffered first from competition with the digital multimedia encyclopaedia Microsoft Encarta, and later with the online peer-produced encyclopaedia Wikipedia. In March 2012, it announced it would no longer publish printed editions and would focus instead on the online version.

Its fiercest competitor of yore, The Encyclopedia Britannica, ended its print run in 2012 after 244 years in print. In a nod to our present digital age, World Book also offers its encyclopedia as a subscription service through the web.

The Internet has rendered vintage encyclopedias obsolete and today the value is primarily from people looking to have a set similar to the one that they grew up with. A complete 1967 white britannica encyclopedia sells for $50 or so at auction and for $120 to $150 from antique book dealers.

Access to PCs and the Internet. Microsoft had a CD-ROM based encyclopedia , you could have a reliable encyclopedic source for a fraction of the money. Later on, Wikipedia and the Internet simply made book-based encyclopedias obsolete.

Merriam-Webster dictionary, any of various lexicographic works published by the G. & C. Merriam Co. —renamed Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, in 1982—which is located in Springfield, Massachusetts, and which since 1964 has been a subsidiary of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The Encyclopedia Britannica contains carefully edited articles on all major topics. It fits the ideal purpose of a reference work as a place to get started, or to refer back to as you read and write. The articles in Britannica are written by expert authors who are both identifiable and credible.

Contact a local art gallery or studio and ask if there are any paper artists in your area. Tell them what you have and they may have suggestions. Some artists like to use books and upcycle them into works of art. I've turned old Readers Digests into scrapbooks, used old discolored dictionary pages to draw on.

Since 1925, a new edition of the encyclopedia has been published annually. Although published online in digital form for a number of years, World Book is currently the only American encyclopedia which also still provides a print edition.

Is the Britannica still in service? ›

Yes, Encyclopaedia Britannica offers corporate and academic subscriptions, along with a wide range of educational products for students and professional learners.

Wikipedia's Outline of knowledge includes many images (including maps, pictures, etc.), and supports the inclusion of images throughout. Britannica's Outline of Knowledge is currently broader (covering the overall spectrum of subjects more evenly) and it is more refined.