Whether a free, editable encyclopedia is better than a professionally produced one is too wide-ranging a question. They're really two entirely different products, and whether one is "better" than the other depends on what you need it for. But there's no question that in a strictly utilitarian sense, it's far better to publish any kind of encyclopedia digitally. It's easier to look stuff up, to search for terms within articles, and to jump to related articles (and in Wikipedia's case, outside sources).

    Still, it's sad to witness the demise of the print edition. There's an aesthetic quality to all those formidable looking books, lined up along the shelf like soldiers of knowledge, that can't be matched by an app or a Web page.

    That of course hasn't stopped the new-media gurus from crowing their oddly misplaced triumphalism today. Jeff Jarvis, the combative champion of all things digital who wields buzzwords like a Ninja wields throwing stars and who regularly celebrates the suffering of print publishers, opened his long string of giddy tweets this way: "Britannica was always a rip-off sold on guilt. Buh-bye."

    He later insisted that his glee was entirely positive, based on Britannica's forging ahead into the digital future and allowing knowledge to "escape its bounds." But his underlying feelings were made clear in that first tweet. One wonders whether he similarly applauded when they finally tore down the Thunderbolt roller coaster on Coney Island in 2000. The thing was just sitting there, dormant and useless, for nearly 20 years. And yet it had been an important part of people's lives, something they felt connected to in a visceral way. It had to come down, but for those people, it was sad when it did.