Free-encyclopedias.com

Encyclopedia Britannica puts itself online free with ads; librarians worry about what comes next

Staff -- School Library Journal, 12/1/1999

Librarians are wondering what the new Britannica.com, a free site supported by advertisements, will mean for libraries. They worry that making online encyclopedias free could cause cash-strapped librarie s to drop print and online subscription encyclopedias from their budgets. And they wonder if the free encyclopedias will be trustworthy reference sources.

"Will advertisers pay extra to position special features related to their products on the encyclopedia's home page," asks Carl Martz, librarian at Yucaipa (CA) High School. " Might sponsors pay to have links to their sites embedded in the encyclopedia's text?"

Britannica spokesman Tom Panelas says Brittanica.com was developed with the home/consumer market in mind, not institutions. But he said institutional subscribers will soon receive more than just the encyclopedia minus the ads. Over the next six months, the subscription version will include full-text access to 70 or so top-quality magazines, the online Books in Print, a guide to the best sites on the Web, and specially written articles.