The conversion of previously print-only reference materials to electronic format marked a major change to the marketing and accessibility of such works.
A striking case study is that of the venerable Encyclopædia Britannica, which was previously only available at prices of USD 1500 and higher, restricting it to the better libraries and the wealthy.
Today, the Encyclopædia Britannica and World Book Encyclopedia[2] retail in electronic format for around 50 USD, with cheaper OEM versions sometimes bundled with new computers.
Such dramatic changes brought conventionally restricted knowledge repositories to the fingertips of an almost universal audience in a period of less than 11 years.
One of the earliest and most well-known was Microsoft Encarta,[3] first introduced on CD-ROM and then also moving online along with other major reference works.