Encyclopaedia Britannica ends print set after 244 years

It's a milestone of the culture, as the editors explain. Meanwhile, the online Britannica is free for a week starting today.

They’ve always been there. Year after year. Since 1768. Every. Single. Day.

But not forever.

Today we’ve announced that we will discontinue the 32-volume printed edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica when our current inventory is gone.

A momentous event? In some ways, yes; the set is, after all, nearly a quarter of a millennium old. But in a larger sense this is just another historical data point in the evolution of human knowledge.