Last Entry for Encyclopaedia Britannica Book Form Hours after Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. announced it will stop publishing print editions of its flagship encyclopedia for the first time in more than 200 years, someone among the editing minions of free online rival Wikipedia made an irony-free note of that fact. "It was announced that after 244 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print, instead focusing on its online encyclopedia," the entry read. "The sales of printed encyclopedias have been negligible for several years," Cauz said. The company plans to mark the end of the print version by making the contents of its website available free for one week, starting Tuesday. Lynne Kobayashi of the Language, Literature & History section of the Hawaii State Library notes there will always be people who prefer using print sources over electronic sources. However, the proliferation of publishers of electronic databases has resulted in an audience becoming attuned to online searching. "There are many advantages to online searching, chief among them the ability to search within the text," Kobayashi said. The major disadvantage is the need for a computer or devices with access to the Internet. Kobayashi noted that whether she uses traditional methods in doing research or going online depends on the question she wants answered. "Sometimes subject knowledge and familiarity with standard resources may get faster results than keying in a search and sifting through results," she said. If the search is broader, searching across several online sources may yield more options. Britannica has thousands of experts' contributors from around the world, including Nobel laureates and world leaders such as former President Bill Clinton and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. "To me, the most important message is that the printed edition was not what made Britannica," Cauz said. Kobayashi said as information professionals, librarians see an important part of their role as directing patrons to trustworthy information sources. "While Wikipedia has become ubiquitous, the Britannica remains a consistently more reliable source," she said.