In October of 1999, Chicago-based Encyclopedia Britannica made its first sortie into the World Wide Web by providing free browsing of its content to customers. They also decided to discontinue printing annually the complete revised set of 33 volumes, which, when arrayed side by side spanned a full two meters.

Encyclopedia Britannica is regarded as the heavyweight champion of English-language encyclopedias, consolidating unassailable authority and prestige over its 240-year history. At its pinnacle in 1989, it boasted an annual revenue of US$650 million, a quantity sufficient at the time to keep half of Taiwan's publishing industry afloat. Recent years have not been as kind. As the web continues to expand, Britannica's profits have slid year after year, down to an estimated 20% of their peak.

Britannica's decline lies in part with their slowness to adapt to digital challenges. In 1990, Microsoft proposed collaborating on a multimedia CD featuring Britannica's content, but Britannica, chuffed by success, felt self-sufficient enough to reject the software giant's overtures. Microsoft turned instead to Encarta Encyclopedia, releasing a CD encyclopedia complete with all of the pictures and entries of the bound volumes, but at a much cheaper price. Cheap enough, in fact, that Britannica was put on the defensive.

In 1994, Britannica released CD and online versions of their encyclopedia. The online encyclopedia was available initially for an annual fee of US$85, but, finding it impossible to contend with all of the free reference material on the web, they began in 1999 allowing part of their content to be viewed for free. Yet even this last concession failed to reverse their troubled fortunes.

"The publishing industry uses content to provide services to readers." Illustrated guide purveyor Owl Publishing House has developed a mobile phone enquiry service that allows purchasers to access a database to help them identify wild bird species.

Though printed encyclopedias and dictionaries are gradually disappearing from the market, the need for the tools they provide is as strong as ever. Every day millions of people make their way to the Wikipedia site by way of Google's search engine.

"The demand hasn't gone anywhere, it's just that readers are obtaining the service in a more efficient manner," says Chen Ying-ching, publisher of Owl Publishing House. Owl specializes in illustrated guides and pictorials, and has watched with great consternation as print encyclopedias, English-Chinese dictionaries, and maps increasingly resemble artifacts of a past age.

Owl started out 19 years ago publishing encyclopedias. Their first book of note, the World Desk Reference, was an exquisitely printed, beautifully laid out reference work rich in both content and illustration that came from the respected British publisher DK. Their Chinese-language edition sold well through at least 10 editions at a price of NT$2490.

"Encyclopedias have to be updated every couple of years, which means sifting through all the content with a fine-toothed comb-it can be a real nightmare of a chore!" says Ellen Hsieh, editorial director at Owl. For example, revising Geography of the World requires taking account of changes in the populations, life expectancies, literacy rates, and landscapes of each country. Each of these changes necessitates changes in the layout, nearly tantamount to producing a new book entirely.

In 2005, Owl published 2500 copies of the newly revised Children's Illustrated Encyclopedia. Such a small quantity could not generate a profit-what's worse is that they only managed to relieve themselves of half.

"Can it be that readers simply have no interest in such a great book? Do they really think they can find everything online?" laments Hsieh. The defeat was also a turning point in business strategy; from then on, they discontinued all licensing of single-edition illustrated encyclopedias (on topics such as science, history, nature, or painting) from DK.

Another series in the DK roster is the highly feted Eyewitness Guides, approximately 200 small books containing concise expositions of subjects myriad and diverse, ranging from the Egyptian pyramids, the Renaissance, and infectious diseases to astronomy and archeology. Each volume features excellent writing and beautiful pictures and illustrations, making them superb educational reading for children around the world.

Owl planned to license 50 of the Eyewitness books to publish in translation. At the time, the cost of licensing the copyright was steep, breaking down to £13 (approximately NT$650) per page. They estimated that they would need to sell at least 3000 copies at NT$330 apiece in order to break even. But intractable market conditions, including rampant piracy on the Chinese mainland, threw a monkey wrench into the works, and they found themselves only printing 2500 copies, down from the initially projected 4000. After publishing just 32 volumes, they were forced to abandon the project, and the company was dealt a second defeat.

"The publishing industry uses content to provide services to readers." Illustrated guide purveyor Owl Publishing House has developed a mobile phone enquiry service that allows purchasers to access a database to help them identify wild bird species.

Though encyclopedias aren't selling any more, other kinds of reference books, namely illustrated guides, have thus far somehow remained relatively unscathed. DK's Dog, for example, is already in its 32nd printing.

After publishing 19 illustrated DK books on dinosaurs, whales, medicinal plants and other subjects, Owl began planning a series of illustrated references on Taiwan's indigenous species, including snakes, owls, and wildflowers. Some of the selections spotlight some of nature's oddities, like the book on longicorn beetles, taken from the collection and journal that De Lin Institute of Technology professor Chou Wen-E compiled over 15 years of study. Some of the diminutive longicorns look as pretty as stag beetles, while others are decidedly homely, their long antennae evoking classic sci-fi depictions of bug-eyed aliens. The book sold in the neighborhood of 5000 copies at NT$780 apiece.

"What has the digital onslaught eradicated? What has survived?" ponders Chen Ying-ching. The web has furnished space for innumerable enthusiasts to post their lives' work, expressed in words or images. "Illustrated guides are reference books. Even though they sell 10-20% less than before, what's kept them from slipping into utter obsolescence and insolvency like the encyclopedias?" he wonders.

"The publishing industry uses content to provide services to readers." Illustrated guide purveyor Owl Publishing House has developed a mobile phone enquiry service that allows purchasers to access a database to help them identify wild bird species.

Chen spent a year in contemplation: Why hadn't illustrated guides suffered the same fate as encyclopedias?

"Web portals' search engines use keywords to search for content. An illustrated guide is the opposite: it leads from content to the specific word that the reader doesn't know." By Chen's reckoning, typing "a bird in the park that looks like a pigeon" into Google's query field will do little to lead you towards the answer you seek from among Google's vast data farms.

"How is a typical reader with no background in taxonomy going to find information about this bird based solely on a layman's cursory impression?" Chen asks. Rather than searching for a needle amidst an infinite digital haystack, that reader would be better served by searching methodically within data limited to a single category. Illustrated guides combine content and search functions into one package, which presents one advantage to readers that the web has yet to supplant.

"If we want our books to be valuable to readers, we have to ask ourselves what their needs actually are," says Chen. With this consideration in mind, digitizing books is much more than simply transferring content verbatim from book pages to computer screens-it means determining what readers value in illustrated guides and what they rely on them for.

From the time they first considered the question of how to digitize traditional media to the actual online launch took Owl two years and eight months. Along the way they faced an array of complex challenges. The first of these was examining the essential value of illustrated guides; next was determining the best means to present it. They then had to reorganize the text to fit the new format, and coordinate with a technical crew to set up the database before finally testing it online. Early this year they unveiled an online database containing content from five illustrated guides on birds. The website helps users identify bird species by answering three questions. Chen's conception has achieved concrete application.

Now when a person spots a bird in the countryside, after downloading the database to their smartphone they can conduct an on-the-spot search. By answering three simple questions-"Is it bigger or smaller than a wild pigeon?" "Is its bill broad or narrow?" and "Where did you see it?"-or by using more advanced search functions-the reader will be shown pictures of those bird species that most closely match the answers. Once downloaded, the database can be consulted without restriction, and the fee for the service is less than NT$100.

The database is aimed at three targets: schools, cellphones, and, in future, the web-enabled iPad-i.e., three different kinds of display screen-that Cite Media Holding Group, of which Owl is a subsidiary, has specifically singled out for its digital expansion.

"Digital publishing is still rooted in the material of the books-it's just a way of getting more mileage out of the content that we already have," says Yeh Chun-chao, Cite Publishing's general manager. In a digital environment teeming with information, the challenge for the publisher is to separate the essential from the multitude of unneeded scraps so as to allow for maximum reader convenience.

"Publishing books is more than just a business-it's a way of providing the means for readers to achieve and satiate any number of aims and conditions: study, growth, self-esteem, leisure, curiosity, problem solving, searching for a better life," says Chen. Ten years ago, the publishing industry saw the writing on the wall warning them to adapt their business approach to the changing times if they wanted to retain relevance. Now the industry must go beyond thinking in terms of mere sales figures and concentrate on making content serve readers directly; only by redefining their purpose by being increasingly attentive to consumer needs will they remain viable.