Beyond Tomes

Britannica puts its reputation on-line

By Mary Holden

Mary Holden is a freelance writer in Chicago.

After surviving technological sluggishness in the first half of the 1990s, the 227-year-old Encyclopaedia Britannica has begun a campaign to persuade middle and high schools to invest in either the new CD-ROM or on-line versions of that venerable work. The campaign will help decide whether Britannica's pricey but high-quality product can find a niche in what has become a crowded market.

With 44 million words, these computerized versions of Britannica are clearly the largest--and arguably the most authoritative--of the electronic encyclopedias. Since their release a year ago, the new versions have gotten generally excellent reviews from experts, and the company hopes that innovations in its on-line version, such as a link-up with Time-Warner, will make it a popular source of information for students.

But at this point, according to Ken Kister, the Tampa-based author of Kister's Best Encyclopedias, the "big three" among the electronic versions are Grolier's, Microsoft's Encarta, and Compton's. Each of those CD-ROMs costs less than $100 and is often included in the package of software sold with complete computer systems. In contrast, Britannica's BCD 1.0 was priced at close to $1,000 when it came out in the fall of 1994--five years after Compton's, and later than the others as well. (Compton's was actually a Britannica product but was sold in 1993.)

"They have a great product; there's no question about it," Kister says about Britannica. "It's not only big, it's authoritative, it's readable, it's current. But if there's a hundred-dollar disc on the market that you can update for $50 every year, it's going to be hard to compete."

The Britannica tradition

Britannica has always been upscale. Its printed version, which comprises 32 volumes weighing 118 pounds, usually sells for $1,500. For decades, a small army of sales representatives working on commission sold the set directly to education-minded parents.

According to Kister, it was the existence of that huge sales force--not yet entirely dismantled--that helps explain why Britannica didn't offer an electronic version until last year. It took a "precipitous drop" in print sales--along with the leadership of retired president Peter Norton and current president Joseph Esposito--to break the power of the sales force within the company, Kister says.

While Britannica's sales force was still pushing the leather-bound version, other companies were establishing themselves in the electronic market with CD-ROMs that are not only inexpensive but entertaining, especially for children. Under "accordion" in Grolier's, for example, an article on the instrument is accompanied by a picture of it as well as a sample of how an accordion sounds.

World Book, another respected name in reference books that still sells its encyclopedia in a printed version, issued a multimedia version last May that also costs less than $100. The World Book CD-ROM includes such clever features as an animation of blood being pumped through the human heart. World Book's CD has 5,000 images, 23 animations, 15 video clips, and 80 audio clips.

Britannica, by contrast, has only 2,000 images in its most recent 2.0 version, mostly of maps and flags. Britannica's 1.0 CD-ROM, the only one available until last summer, had no pictures at all. Like Alice, some children may wonder, "What is the use of a book [or CD-ROM] without pictures or conversations?"

On the other hand, Britannica's text is about four times longer than the texts of its competitors, and its contributors include such notables as the late science and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov and Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman.

In addition, users have praised the ease of doing searches in both the CD and on-line versions of the Britannica.

The primary test site for the on-line version has been the library of the University of California at San Diego. Assistant university librarian Bruce Miller says an interruption in service produced plenty of e-mail complaints from faculty members within a few hours.

"I think it's been quite well received," Miller says. "The usage has been steady and fairly heavy."

Future developments in the on-line version are expected to include a direct link between bibliographical citations in encyclopedia articles and a school or municipal library's card catalog. A student reading an encyclopedia article about India, for example, will be able to strike a computer key to get the library call number of any book mentioned in the article.

There are also connections to government and other resources on the Internet's World Wide Web. For example, an article on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is linked to NASA's own home page. Britannica has also announced the formation of an alliance with Time-Warner's Pathfinder, one of the most popular sites on the World Wide Web. This will allow someone using the on-line encyclopedia to find articles on related topics in Time, People, Entertainment Weekly, and other Time-Warner publications. Currently, only Time is linked with the encyclopedia.

Having offered its on-line version to universities and research facilities since the fall of 1994, Britannica is now turning its sights to middle and high schools. A Britannica spokeswoman says the company is planning to "aggressively market" Britannica Online and BCD--products available only through Britannica--to students in grades six through 12 during the 1995-1996 school year.

Part of the campaign involves lower prices. According to a Britannica spokesman, BCD is on sale for $695. The print set is on sale for $995--or $595 if it is purchased along with the disc or on-line version. The on-line version costs between $895 and $35,000 annually, depending on the number of students. Schools unable to afford the service will be able to buy one BCD that can be accessed by all computers in a school through the main file server.

Behind in the competition

Many schools, of course, have already invested in some other electronic encyclopedia. The Tucson Unified School District in Arizona, for example, is using Compton's, which the district bought after it received funding for such purposes through a technology bond issue three years ago, according to Margaret Loghry, coordinating librarian for the district.

The Dade County Public Schools in Florida are using Compton's, Grolier's, World Book, and Encarta, says Sandra Block, instructional supervisor for library media services. "Students love it. I love it. They use them much more than the print version," says Block. "The technology itself is exciting, and the searching capability is better [than in the print version]."

Block says she has examined the Britannica CD-ROM but prefers the World Book version. "Even kids in high school want pictures," she says.

The University of California's Miller, however, says he was surprised at how much his own two children liked Britannica. "When I look at the Britannica I think, this is great, this is really good. I also think, this is grown-up stuff. But I have two kids, and my fifth-grader is in there all the time. She didn't know it was hard and just went in to write a report about Amelia Earhart." His son, who is an "artist-type" and not an enthusiastic reader, has also enjoyed using the Britannica with some hand-holding, Miller says. "A lot depends on the child."

The price, though, can be a hindrance. "It's too expensive," says Block. "Cost is a big factor at our schools."

A school librarian in Tucson echoed this concern.

"Britannica? We couldn't afford it," says Burgess Needle of the Safford Engineering Technology Magnet Middle School. "My entire budget for the year is $4,000."

Needle says the school library has a set of the printed Britannicas he could refer to if necessary. But, he says, "if I could get [the CD], I would."

According to Mona Khalidi, chairwoman of the library at the University of Chicago Laboratory School, Britannica Online has received an enthusiastic reception from the school's students, many of whom are the children of local college professors. Still, Khalidi says, "it would be nice to have a more colorful one." The cost of Britannica Online is no problem for the Lab School: It comes free from the university, which is the beneficiary of Britannica's owner, the William Benton Foundation.

A Britannica spokesman says the company would not try to emulate the encyclopedias of its competitors in their use of colorful graphics. From the company's perspective, Britannica's main virtue is in providing more information than the competition does.

Can Britannica make it without the bells and whistles?

"I think they have a hard path to go down because they don't have cheap excitement," Miller says. "It's easy to be seduced by the gloss of certain CD-ROMs, and then you look beneath and there's not a lot of substance to it. . . . I don't envy [Britannica its] marketing environment because so much of sales is based on glitz."