The Encyclopaedia Britannica is stopping its print version after over 200 years.

There has never been more information available more quickly. The web makes it easy for experts in every field - cricket included - to put out their advice to anyone with a connection. Twitter and facebook and their ilk are making it possible to get cutting-edge stuff in real time.

There’s no more appetite for a book that sits on your shelf and gets out of date.

Sure, it’s nice to have a book that is a record of what cricket was like in the old days. But it’s not going to make you a better player or coach.

You need constantly updated and well-curated information: proven methods used by coaches in the trenches that allow you to practice in the right way to develop new shots, methods and tactics.

You need a way to personalise that information to your own needs with feedback and discussion.

It’s that approach to coaching that is going to give players the edge.

I’ve spoken to many professional players and coaches, and this is the approach they take now; continual individualised learning is the best way to reach your goals, be they a better coach at the Academy or a professional cricketer.

Cricket is not a game that follows fads (it’s often slow to uptake revolutionary changes that happen in other sports). You can use that to your advantage because while others are still stuck looking at the paper versions, you are interacting and developing fast.

Of course, a great place to start with that is the courses section of PitchVision Academy (it’s got the expertise the twitter lacks but the interaction modern cricket demands). But the main thing is that you are doing it somehow.

Otherwise someone else will, and there are only so many people who can be a success.

Follow the example of Britannica, and get digital.