Computers Sweep Old Symbols Away
Encyclopedia salespeople were once familiar figures at many doors, toting knowledge in their briefcases. Now they are no more. Two weeks ago Britannica, the encyclopedia giant, launched its Web site, www.britannica.com. It’s free. The company hopes to make money through advertising.
The company finally faced a reality of the information revolution.
There is little market anymore for volumes of expensive books containing material that quickly grows stale. A Web site offers daily vitality. Britannica has a terrific brand name and with all the junk on the Internet, it’s no surprise that the site has been overwhelmed with hits. So overwhelmed that it still doesn’t function.
On the Web site you’ll find this message from Don Yannias, CEO of Britannica: “As you may know, the launch of Britannica created such an enormous volume of traffic we were simply unable to handle the demand. Thank you for your patience. I’ll continue to keep you posted on our progress.”
Fifty years from now, when historians attempt to chronicle the information revolution, they will focus on the big stuff that changed daily life - faster computers, fax machines, voicemail. They might not examine as closely the smaller changes in our society, such as the demise of door-to-door encyclopedia salespeople.
But those smaller changes also reflect the profound nature of a revolution that is still in early stages, according to an article in the October issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Peter Drucker writes: “The Information Revolution is now at the point at which the Industrial Revolution was in the early 1820s, about forty years after James Watt’s improved steam engine was first applied to an industrial operation - the spinning of cotton. And the steam engine was to the first Industrial Revolution what the computer has been to the Information Revolution - its trigger, but above all its symbol.”
The encyclopedia is a symbol, too. And when these old symbols die, it’s important to acknowledge what will be missed. Human contact is one loss. Though the neighborhood salespeople could be annoying, they were a link to the outside world. In a few years, those shelf-filling volumes of encyclopedias will be gone from most homes. Gone, too, will be the tactile pleasure of opening a volume, finding the right piece of information and, along the way, enjoying a few unrelated articles you hadn’t planned to read at all. That doesn’t happen with the mechanical efficiency of the computer age.
Britannica showed good business judgment by switching to the Web site, but this new form is still in transition. Don’t throw those hardcover volumes out just yet.