David Robinson: The biggest surprise was a print version was still made

IN THE 1970s, the Encyclopaedia Britannica had an entry on the US High Performance Computing and Communications Programme. This, it revealed, would allow a computer network to run so fast “that the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica could pass over it in one second”.

That’s what happened – and is the reason behind yesterday’s announcement.

Despite a history going back to the height of the Scottish Enlightenment, the Encyclopaedia Britannica could never compete in printed form with the future it had foreseen.

The Encyclopædia born in 18th century Edinburgh was first published in 1768.

But times have changed since the first three-volume copy sold out in 1771.

So dominant is the internet as a source of information that when many people heard the news, their first reaction was probably surprise that the encyclopaedia was still being published.

Here in Edinburgh we know all about the evanescence of the general knowledge reference business.

Only three years ago Chambers – makers of dictionaries and encyclopaedias – shut its doors after 190 years.

Now here is an end to an even older dream – even though it too is one Scotland can be proud of sharing with the world.

• David Robinson is The Scotsman’s Books Editor