Demise of component catalogs

These says the thick - no, huge component catalogs from various distributors seems to be dying breed, being moved to the net. I do understand that there are huge amount of different components and not all can be included in a book, but sometimes even one or two of a category can be enough.

For example, I happened on picture below just earlier (source).

This gave me an idea on a project I was working on, but I already had suspicion that it wouldn't work, at least not by going by the book. But I went to a distributor site (which shall be remain unnamed but people my) and tried to search for a fuse holder (third rephrasing of query, first two resulted nothing useful). And got this listing:

Screw that, half of it seems completely wrong and by experience I guessed other half would be just a red herring anyway. These sites pretty much always use very literal search which is great if you know what you are looking for, but when you only have a vague idea of what exactly you want, is completely useless.

So I grabbed my by now 10-years old, 1000+ page component book and started browsing. And found the similar holder in a few minutes. As it turns out, my first suspicion was correct - automotive fuses (and their holders) as pictured above are rated only for low voltage applications so I have look for another kind of protection anyway.

Now, even with this known, just finding the similar holders in the component book gave me exact component code to look for, which allows be to trace back to correct category in the net to see full listing of holders - which is what I wanted in the first place anyway.

But for how long, I wonder - as the book I have is already 10 years old and as far as I know, no newer editions exist. Which is sad as browsing for suitable looking components in a printed book (with pictures) is always faster and easier than trying the same in the internet. Even when you have to go to the net for details in the end anyway.