Change of Thinking Re- Electronic Encyclopedias

Throughout out this process of examining reference resources in our libraries I have been looking at references with a more critical eye than I did previously. To be honest I didn’t really look critically at the encyclopedias that were on my shelves except to say I should get rid of some of these sets as they aren’t being used and they are more that a little out of date.
When doing the reading for general and specialized encyclopedias and looking at the different online resources I started to rethink my print preference for all things reference and other resources for the library. Just thinking about replacing some of the encyclopedias we have with most of the items being ten to twenty years old, I really had to think about the cost of replacing these materials over the coming years. Would it be worth it to replace all of these in print or would the best solution be to pick one or two resources and then use electronic resources to supplement the print.
With the multimedia aspect of electronic resources my mind started to look at these resources as more preferable as they would be updated more frequently than once a year with the yearbook. Of course the multimedia component is what really drew me to electronic material as I believe kids would be more willing to read longer and search for more information as they have access to animation, games, videos rather than a printed page. I feel this solution would help resolve both financial and a more interesting resource for reference sources.