海角大神

I read the news last week: an old friend died. He鈥檇 been hanging on for years, a shadow of his former self. Once he was the leading authority on almost every subject. Someone you sought out to settle disputes or provide crucial information. He was strong and handsome, in that old-school professorial-leather-patched-sleeves kind of way.

But strength isn鈥檛 an adaptive asset anymore. Today, the nimble and ephemeral inherit the earth. And so Encyclopaedia Britannica has lain to rest its print edition, those gold-lettered pillars that held up your family鈥檚 bookshelves. It was a good run 鈥� 244 years. But all authoritarian regimes eventually fall.

So let us not praise gold-leafed-leather-bound knowledge. Rather, let us trumpet its passing. Let鈥檚 celebrate the fact that information now roams free, great herds of it. It lives and breathes, loosed from cages where it was allowed to reproduce only once a year, edition by edition.

There was a time not so long ago that if you heard a new word 鈥� 鈥渄ialogued鈥� 鈥� for example, you had to wait until the Oxford English dictionary published its annual edition to see if it really was a word. Today we turn nouns into verbs as easily as we 鈥渇riend鈥� people on Facebook. And when enough people use the word and write the word, it鈥檚 a word. We don鈥檛 need an authority鈥檚 stamp of approval.

As a writer, I like that. I made up a word once. About 20 years ago, I used the word 鈥渟niggered鈥� in a column. The proofreader questioned it, pointing to Webster鈥檚, which labeled it a 鈥渃ommon misspelling of the word 鈥榮nickered.鈥欌�� I liked the guttural, onomatopoeia-ness of the word, and I prevailed.

I felt like a god. I鈥檝e since found out that 鈥渟nigger鈥� isn鈥檛 a misspelling but a slang term for 鈥渟nicker鈥� that can be traced back to 1777. Oh well. I took solace in the fact that the word may never before have graced the pages of a newspaper.

The last edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica weighed in at 129 pounds and cost $1,395. It鈥檚 remarkable to consider how much information you can access digitally for $1,395, considering Wi-Fi is free at libraries, in most cities, and at every Starbucks. Or that a really great Internet connection can be as little as $40 a month.

Once that kind of money 鈥� $1,395 鈥� bought you a durable good. I鈥檝e bought cars for less than the cost of the final Brittanica print edition. Now, knowledge is no longer a durable good. It鈥檚 fluid. Wikipedia puts out a new edition every minute, as entries constantly change and evolve. And with near Britannica-like accuracy, according to a study published in the journal 鈥淣ature鈥� in 2005.

That鈥檚 a beautiful thing. That鈥檚 progress. But the problem with progress is that it usually comes at a great cost. Switching from gas engines to electric adds so much to the sticker price that it doesn鈥檛 make sense for most Americans. High-speed rail could replace Amtrak, but the cost would be enormous.

That鈥檚 what makes the digital knowledge revolution so beautiful. It鈥檚 cheap. The math works. We can replace 129 pounds of books with an online subscription fee. Or with Wikipedia. And in the process we save the cost of all that paper and ink. We no longer have to burn the carbon it takes to produce and ship these mammoth sets of books, which weigh more than most lawn mowers.

E-books will continue to fall in price. And someday soon, college students will save hundreds of dollars a year by paying to access texts online, rather than in textbook form.

When the math works, life is beautiful. There鈥檚 no gridlock. We can afford to solve problems. Right now, ophthalmologists are developing phone apps that can diagnose eye problems, replacing machines that cost thousands of dollars and don鈥檛 travel easily to remote areas of the world. And your phone already has a GPS system that would have been the envy of NASA not so long ago.

That鈥檚 progress. And while it no longer comes leather-bound or looks as lovely on your shelves, it鈥檚 beautiful all the same.

Jim Sollisch is creative director at Marcus Thomas Advertising.