Everyone is talking about the Internet, about limitless new information possibilities.

The Brockhaus editors also use it for research, competently and critically.

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.” If you are lucky enough to find another Brockhaus from 2002 on the shelf, you only have to open the heavy, leather-bound cover to suddenly feel young (or at least younger).

The foreword goes even further, it is primarily a hymn to the ninth edition of the encyclopedia classic with all its advantages.

But perhaps some authors already had bad suspicions at the time – due to the brave new world of the Internet.

Benjamin Fisher

Editor in Business.

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Basically, until 2005, there was great euphoria "to be able to carry on the brand and the encyclopedia for many years to come," says Thomas Littschwager, who now manages Brockhaus.

A little later, however, the situation looked different: the whole world was no longer just talking about the Internet, but was also increasingly using it themselves to look up information.

Wikipedia had won, and Brockhaus had to develop a new business model.

The 21st edition of 2005 was to be the last, 200 years after the publication of the first.

The Brockhaus brand first went to Bertelsmann and then in 2015 to the Swedish company NE Nationalencyklopedin.

Target group: teachers, pupils, in perspective also students.

NE traditionally markets the Swedish national encyclopedia – and not too many printed versions of it anymore either.

The small book publishing business still exists not least because of a legal requirement.

Digital education providers would therefore also have to offer printed teaching material.

Its importance is less in Sweden than in Germany, the Scandinavians are known to be digital model students in the education sector.

"Meanwhile, more than 75 percent of the students in Sweden have access to the NE services with the reference works or digital teaching materials," says Littschwager.

The business with teaching materials in particular is growing strongly.

Littschwager's task is to

Four federal states have acquired state licenses

"Basically, we offer two service packages," he says.

Tested content in the form of an online reference work plus self-study course is one part.

"The focus of the other area is - as in Sweden - on digital teaching materials for schools." The conditions in this country are of course different due to the federal education system with many different curricula and the digital backlog.

He lists that almost 2.7 million schoolchildren currently have access to Brockhaus products via state licenses from North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony-Anhalt, Rhineland-Palatinate and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Whether schools actually work with Brockhaus tests, presentations, worksheets or the reference work is of course another matter.

"The money and the willingness are there, but the German school system only works to a limited extent in that content is bought centrally and all schools use it," says Littschwager.

"Ultimately, every school would like to decide for itself which materials are used for teaching." It is quite possible that teachers in a federal state have never heard of the Brockhaus state license.

As a first step, they are still important, says Littschwager.

Accordingly, negotiations are ongoing with other countries.