the rise of online digital encyclopedias such as Wikipedia first had a big impact on the sales of encyclopedias in the traditional printed format. in fact many publishers have given up producing encyclopedias on paper because people have stopped buying them. the other victims of the success of virtual information have been libraries, why go to s library if you can find everything you need to know on your computer at home?furthermore, internet sites such as the Gutenberg project and the internet archive offer access to thousands and thousands of book that are not now affected by copyright. with a click of your mouse, classical literature is available online for free.