Encyclopaedia Britannica Goes Online For Free.

The entire Encyclopaedia Britannica, a 32-volume set that sells for $1,250 in book form, has been placed on the Internet free of charge, the publishers of the 231-year-old reference work announced Tuesday. Company spokesman Tom Panelas said the development did not mean Britannica was giving up the compact disc versions of the reference work or the printed word -- sold door-to-door for decades by salesmen who urged parents to put the world_s knowledge on the home bookshelf with easy monthly payments. He said the Chicago-based company still planned to publish a new 40-volume set "and will continue to serve that market." But Tuesday_s announcement was a capitulation of sorts for a company caught swimming upstream against the information river. It entered the CD and online markets later than others and the cost of its product in disc form was higher than some other computer-driven encyclopedias. The new company will be supported by advertising revenue from the site. "This is a momentous day for knowledge seekers everywhere," said Don Yannias, chief executive of Britannica.com Inc., a new company owned by the publisher and named for the Internet site that carries the material. In addition to the full text of Britannica, the site -- www.britannica.com -- carries news feeds from newspapers and news wires around the world; selected articles from more than 70 popular magazines including Esquire, Sports Illustrated, and The Economist; and a searchable directory of the Web's best sites, chosen by Britannica_s editors. Britannica_s first edition was issued in 100 parts from 1768 to 1771 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the brainchild of three Scotsmen. It calls itself the "oldest continuously published reference work in the English language." The company came under U.S. ownership in 1901 and was later acquired by Chicago-based Sears, Roebuck and Co. In the 1940s it was bought by William Benton, retired co-founder of the advertising firm Benton and Bowles. In 1995 the company, which reportedly had been losing money for several years, was sold to an investment group led by Swiss businessman Jacob Safra for undisclosed terms by the William Benton Foundation, which operated at the University of Chicago.