According to PC Pro, Microsoft will be discontinuing their Encarta Encyclopaedia reference software due to the huge popularity of Wikipedia.

Well, it was going to happen sooner or later. Who doesn't use Wikipedia as their first point of reference these days? It's quick, convenient and most important of all - Free! Even my lecturers use it now and then ^^;

Maybe a future full of e-books instead of paper ones really isn't that far away.

Then again, not everyone knows some of the entries can be manipulated easily - Especially the less popular ones.

The same lecturer I mentioned above also stresses we need more than 30 individual references at least when it comes to doing long research papers such as for the Honours year. Preferably from books and academic journals so my university doesn't completely depend on Wikipedia. I wouldn't even be one of the students if it did.