I think many of us have been reading the books of encyclopedia from our childhood days. There are many who might be still using it in their daily life to upscale their IQ and Knowledge. But, now Encyclopedia print edition will be closed forever after long runway of 244 years. It’s mainly due to advancement of technology and constant lack of users’ interest towards its books. Users prefer to turn either towards Google or Wikipedia to grab information about any of the desired topics or sections.
Behind the exit of Encyclopedia Britannica print edition from the market is the rise of digital media – especially Wikipedia. One will be surprised to know that even children under age of 8 years prefer reading article on Wikipedia rather than referring Encyclopedia or any other traditional form of media.
A research shows that in 2012, 73% of teachers have prohibited the use of Wikipedia by the students which is comparatively low from 86% in 2005. This shows that in last half a decade Wikipedia has registered phenomenon growth and attraction
Though, teachers and many companies still take reserve approach while using Wikipedia information – especially due to editable form of information which could be done by any one – as the authenticity of such info, facts or figures is always been a dicey affair. Wikipedia has recorded 3.86 percent mistakes in each of its article compare to 2.92 percent in Britannica Encyclopedia.
Instead of all these issues, 8 out of 10 students prefer Wikipedia for their research purposes. This shows student’s dependency and confidence over digital media has increased at a steady rate.
Study highlights that around 27 million pages of contents are available on Wikipedia and near about 99 percent of Wikipedia pages ranks in top 10 search result – a bit surprising.
Apart from this, it has been found out that the traditional use of library among student is also declining with the rate of 11% annually. In accordance to this, the number of books is also decline by with 12% rate.
Currently, Wikipedia has 91 percent male employees compare 9 percent female employees. And, it is planning to increase its number of female editors by 25 percent till 2015. In addition, it has also planned to improve the accuracy of all the articles by 25 percent and want to increase the number of regular editors to 200,000.
Wikipedia is the best sources to grab the information about the product as it get updated at regular interval of time while books and encyclopedia going out of the shelf with each passing day.
