All in the world flows and changes. Is not also an exception and the Internet is the enormous information river, one of the most live and dynamical organisms in the information world. And till now, rummaging every possible search “networks” in depths of the Network World, we tried to “catch” in its depths the information fresh and actual – for the given concrete moment. Applying for a role of the World storehouse of the information, it is compelled to compete not only to the short-lived press, but also with more solid, fundamental storehouses of knowledge. For example, encyclopedias.

Till an epoch of the Internet they were the main sources of knowledge, the main our advisers and assistants. Whether interested us the biography of the well-known writer, interpretation of terms – we found answers to all these questions on book pages.

Moreover, appear, that there are no in the world of two more excellent from each other phenomena, than the Internet and traditional encyclopedias. The information in the Network is distributed non-uniformly – feast today and fast tomorrow – and the accurate structure in it is absent. An another matter – encyclopedias, solid, authoritative editions on which and to refer pertinently in any situation. In them and article everyone is brought to perfection, checked repeatedly up and to use to it conveniently … Here only volume afflicts – try to squeeze on a shelf to small apartment at least «the Big Soviet Encyclopedia»! And the price bites … At last, any book encyclopedia inevitably becomes outdated in some years after an exit – and it besides that the emphasis here becomes not on fashionable sensations-something ephemeral, and on the phenomenon of historical scale …

In a word, at everyone the lacks – but also … And, alas, we too seldom recollect the advantages it, completely rejecting one source of the information for the sake of another. Ask any modern schoolboy – and whether for a long time you looked at least in «the Big encyclopaedic dictionary»? In the answer – sincere bewilderment: «And what for? Everything that is necessary to me, I and will find in the Network …» Perhaps it and so.

It is possible, of course, long and занудно to philosophise, discussing so fashionable now a theme of opposition of book and electronic forms of representation of the information. But after all actually no opposition here is present! For a long time already many traditional encyclopedias have found a new life, having embodied in the electronic form on Internet open spaces.
Everything has begun, certainly, with the well-known “Britaniki” which have opened «network representation» in the end of the last century. First, the truth, publishing house of the well-known encyclopedia perceived electronic “Britaniku” exclusively as a toy, an advertising gimmick, called to advance sale of “Britaniki” paper. However it is literally in a year, having convinced of unknown interest of the public to «a virtual clone» legendary edition, its owners have run into other extreme measure – access to a site “Britanika” became paid …

Well, encyclopedias have got accustomed on the Internet, having won for itself own «an ecological niche». And in increasing frequency in search of compactly presented and a trustworthy information users address to them. The Twist of fate: the maximum of advantage from Internet encyclopaedias takes young generation – students, schoolboys. Those that so like to argue about «old age» books in general and encyclopedias – in particular …