[HN Gopher] I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print
___________________________________________________________________
I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 248 points
Date : 2023-06-09 12:40 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| srvmshr wrote:
| I used to go to my school library's reference section because I
| loved to read the Brittanica
|
| Does anyone know what kind of paper was used for its printing? It
| was good in quality to not have bleed through, but sheer enough
| to have several hundred pages per volume.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| In the 80's the encyclopedia filled the same niche that a
| smartphone does for me now. Whenever I had a small number of
| minutes to kill I grabbed a random volume and flipped open to a
| random page.
| nerdponx wrote:
| I still love "big book of X" types of books for this reason,
| and I still buy them. Same with short story collections.
| ChicagoBoy11 wrote:
| Do you think there was better ROI to that time spent than now
| with the smartphone? Like, you "killed" those 5mins by learning
| something (however esoteric it may have been) versus sucked
| into a nonsensical Tik Tok vortex?
| tomashubelbauer wrote:
| > In the 80's the encyclopedia filled the same niche that a
| smartphone does for me now.
|
| I took this to mean the niche is "learning something
| interesting in a short amount of time" not "killing a short
| amount of time" so to me the OP implied they were using the
| smartphone to learn and not browse TikTok.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| It's both? I have the attention span of a gnat so whenever
| I'm forced to wait in one place for more than 10 seconds I
| pull my phone out. I don't pull up TikTok, but I pull up HN
| or similar. Theoretically HN et al can be educational, but
| it's mostly functioning as an alternative to TikTok.
|
| This behaviour is normal today, but 40 years ago people
| other than me had the ability to wait patiently.
| pstuart wrote:
| Same in the early 70s. Bonus was the Time Life science series.
|
| There's something to be said about not having ubiquitous
| portable distraction devices to encourage more "productive"
| uses of time.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Except I don't flip to a random page on the internet.
|
| Like you, I am remembering the serendipity of the encyclopedia
| (and libraries for that matter).
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Both HN & encyclopia's are curated sets of articles that work
| similarly when in a "filling time" mode -- they present you
| with a set of articles and you read the interesting ones.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Nah, it's sites like HN and Reddit that curate the randomness
| for us. There is / was a service, the name escapes me for
| now, that would install itself as a hotbar in your browser,
| press it and it would send you to a random web page,
| depending on your configured preferences / interests. I'm
| sure the name will come to me randomly soon enough.
| burkaman wrote:
| StumbleUpon
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Likely you're thinking about StumbleUpon, which doesn't
| exist anymore
| vasco wrote:
| There's a toplevel option called "random article" as well as
| the shortcut ctrl+option+x to go to a random article. If
| anything it's a way better serendipity generator.
| zuminator wrote:
| There are way too many articles on Wikipedia for a
| completely random single article to be likely to be
| interesting. What would be better is if it generated a list
| of about 20 different random articles in a summarized list,
| like search engine results.
|
| Perhaps even better would be if, instead is drawn from the
| entire Wikipedia, the list was generated from a pool of
| articles that are at most N links separated from your
| current page.
| dpedu wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
| RandallBrown wrote:
| The wikipedia game is really fun!
|
| Open two tabs with random wikipedia articles. See how many
| clicks it takes to get from the first article to the second
| by just clicking links.
|
| It's pretty fun and educational.
| bawolff wrote:
| I think the problem with Special:random is that the long
| tail of wikipedia isn't that interesting. Someone should
| make one weighted by wikiproject importance rating.
| hedora wrote:
| I used to think the library's utility was on an exponential
| decay, thanks to the internet.
|
| Now, SEO spam has convinced me it's actually a bathtub curve,
| and is rapidly shooting back up.
|
| This makes sense, historically. I'm sure there was a time
| when literally anything that had been printed on a printing
| press was worth reading.
|
| I witnessed the time when anything that had been stored on a
| CD-ROM was worth reading, since generating CD-ROM worth of
| data, then producing them was ridiculously expensive (that
| time period lasted about 1-2 years).
|
| Anyway, early internet, it was hard to publish stuff. As of
| this year, it's less expensive to write and publish stuff
| than it is to read it, so curated repositories that are
| hardened against spam are going to be important again.
| aimor wrote:
| I had a number of volumes of really nice looking books on the
| shelf growing up. There was the encyclopedia set which was ok,
| but also collections of stories, museum collections, city
| reference books. They're great because you can grab anything and
| usually find interesting well written good quality content. Even
| the worst of them, and there are bad books, are at least well
| written.
|
| Anyway, I recently found out the volumes were selected by my
| architect uncle to coordinate with the built-in bookshelves. They
| were just intended as a visual prop, but I've taken a few of the
| classics and museum sets with me and still enjoy flipping
| through.
| mwcampbell wrote:
| > in print form, accessible to all
|
| That's a contradiction, albeit surely an unintentional one. Only
| electronic text is fully and automatically accessible to the
| blind, visually impaired, and dyslexic. I assume that in this
| context, "accessible to all" is intended to mean that it's
| accessible to people without computers. How big a problem is that
| these days?
| pharrington wrote:
| Not to mention the $1000+ price tag, and it taking up a ton of
| physical space. Print encyclopedias are definitely a luxury.
| humanistbot wrote:
| Also, this encyclopedia is only accessible to those who pay
| $1200, who can only access it if they are physically in the
| room where the buyer has installed it. That's not accessible in
| my view.
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| The context in the article was public and school libraries as
| buyers.
| [deleted]
| RegularOpossum wrote:
| I loved reading my grandfather's 1980s edition World Book when
| visiting, pre internet. There was something kind of magical about
| that much information in one place at the time, but at a house
| instead of a library!
|
| Edit: I also remember browsing the Macintosh version of the
| Encyclopedia Britannica as one of my first school computer
| activities.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Same with Microsoft Encarta
| Ekaros wrote:
| I have local encylopedia from 1928... It is also interesting
| alternative. Just to get some different perspective on history.
|
| Now I think I might need to look for something even older, if
| there is anything available for cheap.
| Demmme wrote:
| Nope. Writing about buying 1100$ worth of a book just because
| tomorrow someone might pull it from the internet is NOT
| reasonable at all.
|
| He could also just have described how to download Wikipedia or
| whatnot...
| thesuitonym wrote:
| My takeaway from the article is that it's more about the
| novelty and nostalgia, but also could serve a purpose--and that
| purpose is more about bad information being available online
| than about it going away.
| willcipriano wrote:
| They won't pull it. They will change it and you won't know.
| "Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia."
| ilyt wrote:
| Then download today's copy of wikipedia...
| Demmme wrote:
| And then you solved the source of Truth problem because you
| got an old book?
|
| Could be a wrong.print. could be a fake.
|
| Bible is also not true just because it's some book.
| behringer wrote:
| All wikipedia history is visible.
|
| If you're worried though, download a copy today :)
| [deleted]
| mcphage wrote:
| I have tons of memories of reading my parents' World Book
| Encyclopedia growing up. Honestly, getting a print copy for my
| kids to browse through doesn't seem a bad idea.
| cubefox wrote:
| Though the reports indicate that kids don't like them.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I've been seriously thinking about getting a complete set of good
| printed encyclopedias. I am inspired now. Perhaps I can find a
| secondhand set of Encyclopedia Britannica.
| danjoredd wrote:
| I have been meaning to get one myself. Problem is it is so darn
| expensive
| cubefox wrote:
| They are much cheaper if the edition is just a bit older, like
| 2020.
| F00Fbug wrote:
| My parents had Encyclopedia Britannica and I'm convinced that was
| a huge benefit to me that I'm still realizing today. I was born
| in 1965 and can remember even in elementary school any time I had
| a question my parents couldn't answer we'd look it up in the EB.
| Pretty soon I was habituated to just go there on my own and look
| up anything. When bored I'd pull out a random volume and just
| flip through it looking for anything that caught my eye.
|
| I'm sure that was no small expense for my parents, but it really
| was an investment in us kids!
|
| It's wonderful having access to all that and more on your phone,
| but there was something special about that long row of brown
| volumes. I was always excited when the annual supplement came; my
| brother and I would flip through it to see what new knowledge had
| been discovered!
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I grew up with World Book encyclopedias and it was very much
| the same. Until we got a computer. Encarta was the coolest
| thing I had ever used and I spent hours playing with the
| interactive encyclopedia. After that I hardly touched the
| printed books.
| alexsereno wrote:
| Encarta and Spy Fox were my childhood PC time haha
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| Younger but very similar. Read A to S. I started T and went to
| college.
|
| I think it cost about $2.5k.
|
| What's odd is my parents never read it as they were illiterate.
|
| I found most of the topics were very short. Going in depth was
| limited to the library books. Picking six books only to find
| them referencing themselves was annoying. Six books with 130%
| total page content between them.
|
| I did learn how to read, skim, absorb content. I also
| discovered most people simply repeat information instead of
| using or validating.
| jstarfish wrote:
| > What's odd is my parents never read it as they were
| illiterate.
|
| Not odd. If they're anything like my family, they would have
| bought it hoping it would help _you_ escape the same fate.
|
| > Younger but very similar. Read A to S. I started T and went
| to college.
|
| The animal kingdom has long suffered from overfamiliarity
| with aardvarks and the existential denial of zebras ;)
| wtcactus wrote:
| For me, the idea of having it on paper, is also that the
| definition of words can't be changed to please modern
| sensibilities.
|
| I reckon I don't have an encyclopaedia - my parents didn't have
| that much money growing up, and now, I don't have that much space
| available (not sure if they are even printed in my language
| anymore). But I do have a very prized (personally) big dictionary
| from the 80s, that my father used with his studies.
|
| It's scary, to see how certain words totally changed their
| meaning in a few decades, and it's great to be able to go and
| look them out to get some context on a few themes. Be certain,
| that the Overton window, did move radically in one direction.
| equivocates wrote:
| My parents had a set of encyclopedia Britannica from 1987.
| Problem is they got it for me in 1997.
| milar wrote:
| Learned a lot from this as a kid.
| gareve wrote:
| Sounds like: We want to invest on AI and this is our exclusive
| training dataset.
| novaRom wrote:
| I don't speak Danish but I remember how amazing is their
| encyclopedia "Lille Salmonsen", one I "read" every evening in my
| hotel room in Kopenhagen. It was 1940 edition. Somehow with my
| German and English, and a bit of common knowledge, I could "read"
| it and it's really interesting, illustrated encyclopedia,
| reflecting Danish history, language, character, and probably
| their "thinking". This is one of those physical books I would
| like to have at least in our local public library.
| hedora wrote:
| We have an old set, and some friends were over with their third
| grader, who had to write a report. She tried using wikipedia, but
| it popped up a 30 page article on an advanced topic she was
| trying to find a definition of.
|
| I handed her the encyclopedia, and showed her how to look up the
| word. One paragraph later, she said "that's EXACTLY what I
| needed."
|
| Indeed.
| simbas wrote:
| Try simple English Wikipedia
| ilyt wrote:
| > My family's reaction was disappointing, but I don't mind that
| the encyclopedia set is just for me.
|
| That's just coping after burning a bit of money on an useless
| shelf decoration... I'm sure he will use it occasionally instead
| of wikipedia just to feel he didn't threw away that money.
| lurquer wrote:
| I bought a new set in 2009 to 'enrich' the kids. They never
| read it, but the books came in handy for crafts when you need
| to weight something down and for securing marble-coaster and
| hotwheel tracks at the top of the stairs.
|
| I started reading them from start to finish. Gave up after a
| while, but at least I now know a lot of trivia about things
| that start with A, B, C, and D.
| kvetching wrote:
| >for the information apocalypse
| ilyt wrote:
| I wrote it in other comment but just...copy wikipedia locally
| if that's your problem ?
| karmakaze wrote:
| I grew up with the World Book set as well. Seemed like there were
| more books/pages (or maybe thicker pages/smaller print). We also
| had a set of Funk and Wagnalls as well as a Disney set of the
| future world. They were a constant passtime, but even as a child
| certain topics ended far too briefly. Today we have Wikipedia to
| follow up.
| [deleted]
| cubefox wrote:
| I probably would have appreciated such an encyclopedia as a kid.
| I actually got a "computer encyclopedia" (a single heavy book
| with way over a thousand pages) as a birthday present once, and I
| simply read through it from start to finish, brute force style,
| skipping only the most boring articles. My attention span was
| almost unlimited back then.
| mayormcmatt wrote:
| When MS Encarta came out in 1993 our household got it, too. I
| did the same thing on our 486 beige box: just hit the arrow
| button on articles, reading through as many as I could.
|
| With my Reddit habit probably soon coming to an end, it might
| be a good time to readjust my attention span, haha.
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| I still have my 1979 set (with 1980 Year Book!) - I traded in a
| 1952 set I inherited from a (much older) cousin. Funnily enough,
| a lot of the articles were the same (quite a few of the
| experiments, in particular) and of course the articles about pre-
| Eisenhower presidents.
|
| It's great for stabilizing my freestanding Ikea bookshelf,
| though.
| dfan wrote:
| I still possess my grandfather's 1911 Encylopedia Britannica. I
| didn't fully realize just how old it was until I looked up
| Nicholas II and the entry began by identifying him as the current
| Tsar of Russia.
| acatton wrote:
| > At a time when most information comes to us for free online
| (with strings attached, of course), it's easy to have sticker
| shock at the $1,199 retail price for the 2023 edition of World
| Book, although shoppers might occasionally find it for as low as
| $799 on Amazon (to compare, the online subscription costs $250
| per year)
|
| I understand that there is some economy of scale issue. (I would
| expect them to have very few buyers) But this price is hard to
| justify. Does it cost $949 to print and ship, when comparing the
| online edition to the physical edition?
| Veen wrote:
| The final edition of Encyclopaedia Brittanica was $1,395.
| ancientworldnow wrote:
| ~$28-50 a book for a large hard bound full color print doesn't
| sound unreasonable?
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| [dead]
| cafard wrote:
| My guess is that the price is comparable (adjusted for
| inflation) to what my parents' generation paid for
| encyclopedias in the 1950s and 1960s.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Funny to think that parents purchased an encyclopedia for the
| family the way a later generation would purchase a home
| computer for the family.
|
| Actually, maybe _funny_ is the wrong word, it 's kind of
| sweet.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| I think it's actually less when adjusted for inflation. I
| recall full sets like this being close to $2000 even way back
| when. Of course, back then you'd often "subscribe" to them,
| paying a smaller monthly fee and getting one book per month
| until you had the full set.
| jasomill wrote:
| Used books were a thing even way back when; as a child in
| the mid-'80s, I bought (with my parents' money) a complete
| Encyclopaedia Britannica set at the opening "friends and
| family" night of our local public library system's annual
| book sale for $100 or so, in "like new" condition and
| barely out of date.
| namdnay wrote:
| How many online encyclopedias are there? How many print
| encyclopedias are there? Price s aren't (only) determined by
| costs
| tbihl wrote:
| That sounds so cheap to me. My 11th edition of Encyclopedia
| Brittanica cost maybe $4000, and I have to do maintenance to
| fight off dust mites and red rot. But it looks very good, and
| it's widely considered the best Encyclopedia. Apprently
| Wikipedia started out as a project to digitize 11th Britannica.
| It's public domain now, so you can read it on your phone free
| if you're interested in ruining all the charm.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > it's widely considered the best Encyclopedia
|
| I've been hearing this since the pre-web days. Most of the
| people saying it, as I remember, were either Jerry Pournelle
| or his fellow travelers, and even as a youth I had to wonder
| how much of that was just nostalgia for the peak of the
| British Empire and all that went along with it.
| mattcaywood wrote:
| Some people might enjoy the pre-war colonial grandeur and
| optimism, but the 11th is mostly notable for the quality of
| its authors including:
|
| Ernest Rutherford, Bertrand Russell, T.H. Huxley, James
| Jeans, Peter Kropotkin
|
| Before or after 1911, this level of scholar would not
| typically be found writing encyclopedia entries.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica_
| E...
| eesmith wrote:
| Shannon wrote the entry on "Information Theory" for the
| 12th edition.
|
| https://archive.org/details/encyclopdiabrita12chic/page/n
| 307...
| jasode wrote:
| _> Later, I introduced the encyclopedia to my kids. They had
| never used a print encyclopedia, and they looked at me like I was
| an alien, almost as if I were speaking a different language (such
| a trite expression, but man, is it accurate). I had hoped they
| could use the encyclopedia as an old-fashioned reference, but so
| far, they have completely and utterly rejected it, not even
| expressing interest or opening it once. That aspect of my plans
| for the encyclopedia has been a big failure._
|
| The kids' reaction makes perfect sense to me and I grew up with
| an encyclopedia set in the house.
|
| My family was poor so we couldn't afford the "nice" encyclopedia
| sets like Encyclopaedia Britannica. Instead, my mom bought the
| Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia _one-letter-at-a-time_ from the
| grocery store. E.g., the grocery store didn 't have the entire
| A-to-Z set at the store. What happened was volume 'A' would be in
| the aisle near the checkout. You add that one book to your
| grocery chart. (One book wouldn't blow the whole household
| budget.) A few weeks later, the volume 'B' would appear. After a
| few months, you'd eventually end up with entire A to Z set. F&W
| was the "more affordable" encyclopedia and they brilliantly set
| up a "installment payment plan" by tapping into mom's weekly
| shopping habits. Very clever strategy to use supermarkets as the
| sales channel instead of commissioned door-to-door salesmen. But
| even that was too much money for us and my mom couldn't afford
| the entire set in one year. So the volumes she missed had to wait
| until next year with a new print edition which was a different
| color. So our encyclopedia set was a Frankenstein set combining
| different years. A lot of older HN readers will know what I'm
| talking about.
|
| I used that F&W extensively in school but I don't wish I had
| another set of books in the house. Today's Wikipedia is much
| better. It covers thousands of other niche subjects that a
| limited set like F&W could ever possibly include. And extensive
| hyperlinks to see how topic-X-leads-to-topic-Y.
| function_seven wrote:
| I remember this vividly. The end-cap on one of the aisles was
| where the encyclopedias were stocked. The "A" volume was sold
| for $0.01. One penny!
|
| I remember being incredulous at the low price. My dad: "Wait
| until you see what they charge for 'B', kiddo."
| madcaptenor wrote:
| They should charge $0.01 for the first volume and twice as
| much for each successive volume.
| floren wrote:
| _Do_ you remember how much the B volume cost?
| function_seven wrote:
| I want to say $39.99, but I'm not entirely sure of that
| number.
| mvf4z7 wrote:
| I bet there were a lot of essays written about Aardvarks at
| that time.
| ompogUe wrote:
| My mom bought us these, too. But she didn't always go to that
| supermarket (National, iirc), so we had, say: A-G, K, M-R, and
| XZY. Or something like that. Still, she was soooo excited when
| it started that it was infectious.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Funk & Wagnalls also had an English dictionary in the early
| 1970s with excellent etymologies, which seem absent from
| dictionaries when i've looked in a Barnes and Noble store.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| I had that dictionary. So thorough that I did an entire
| research project just by reading definitions!
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I've got it still and it's like 50 years old, and it seems
| it no longer can be ordered.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > The kids' reaction makes perfect sense to me and I grew up
| with an encyclopedia set in the house.
|
| Same, and same, and I don't know why the author ever expected
| anything else. You can't give them a hoop&stick and then
| complain when they'd rather play with, I don't know, I'm old
| and childless, some modern toy.
| [deleted]
| cxr wrote:
| > I'm [...] childless
|
| So it wouldn't be too presumptuous to treat the chances as
| being very high that you've never given a child the gift of a
| very large cardboard box.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| I never have, but as a child I received a couple, and
| they're great fun. In this case my thoughts are twofold.
| First, it sounds like the kids are old enough to be
| potential users of the encyclopedia, and more importantly
| old enough to start choosing their own sources, and the way
| I remember it that's a bit past the age at which a
| cardboard box holds much excitement. Second, the article
| has a picture of the box that the encyclopedia came in, and
| it doesn't really look all that large to me; I've gotten
| larger ones than that from amazon plenty of times and I
| would expect the author has as well.
| skydhash wrote:
| I had different encyclopedias at home, most of them targeted to
| kids. There were two which had specific subjects. One, science
| and the other, the human body. I believe they would have been
| more helpful than the internet - I did not have the internet,
| or even a computer at home at the time - because of the tactile
| experience. On a computer, everything blends together, and you
| have to do a more conscious effort to recall a particular fact.
| Later, I had access to Encarta but, I still preferred reading
| the physical books.
|
| This has shaped my current learning process. I liked to explore
| a subject instead of getting a direct answer right away. Even
| when I'm googling, I click on a couple of results first before
| I'm satisfied. I'm not comfortable with ChatGPT for the same
| reason.
| tmastern wrote:
| Good ol Funk and Wagnalls, we had the same set, bought through
| the same process...they also had a classical music record
| collection distributed the same way...volume 1 was Beethoven's
| 6th, which is one of my favorites to this day...
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| My parents made it all the way up to 'G' before inheriting a
| set of Encyclopedia Britannicas.
|
| I had some well-written reports in grade school that were
| graded pretty harshly until the teacher figured out what year
| they were published.
|
| I eventually returned to F&W indirectly after we acquired a
| copy of Encarta on CD-ROM along with our first PC.
| jandrese wrote:
| The limitations of the old style encyclopedia are immediately
| obvious when you go to actually use it. Thousands of articles
| that only barely scratch the surface on the topic. Even then if
| you're interested in something even mildly obscure it won't be
| in there at all. Of course you couldn't use it as a source when
| writing a paper, and worst of all they didn't even provide the
| sourcing information for the articles that they did have (maybe
| nicer ones did? The ones at my library did not), so as a
| research tool they were near useless.
|
| I do remember that there was an exception for the Encyclopedia
| Britannica, which could be used as a source as long as it
| wasn't the only source. For some reason it was considered more
| scholarly than other encyclopedias.
| nemo44x wrote:
| I think the idea behind them was you'd read them and when
| coming across a topic of interest you'd hit up the card
| catalogue at the library to find books that go deeper into
| the topic.
| gumby wrote:
| > The limitations of the old style encyclopedia are
| immediately obvious when you go to actually use it. Thousands
| of articles that only barely scratch the surface on the
| topic.
|
| This is a feature not a bug: encyclopedia articles are
| breadth-first introductions to topics. If you are just mildly
| curious about something you'll probably get what you need. If
| you want to know more you'll have a view of the "landscape"
| and so will probably understand a more specialized book
| better -- and even be better at finding the right specialized
| book in the library.
| heyoni wrote:
| I wonder if that's wikipedias intent with their simple
| initiative. You can pull up articles by adding simple in
| the domain to get a less comprehensive article.
| deepspace wrote:
| I agree. We had a similar non-mainstream encyclopedia set
| (not F&W) when I was growing up. I was a voracious reader
| and, at some point, read them all back to back.
|
| That did not provide me with in-depth knowledge about
| anything, but even today I have a wide general knowledge,
| and I am interested in many subjects, some very obscure,
| which I credit to that encyclopedia.
|
| More importantly, the encyclopedia gave me an overview of
| human knowledge and helped me to figure out what I was most
| interested in. The articles about radio, radar, computers
| and such always fascinated me and, I think, steered me into
| a career in engineering.
| njharman wrote:
| Those features are all much better provided by The
| Internet. Including finding and ordering a specialized
| physical book if you need.
| sorokod wrote:
| "Thousands of articles that only barely scratch the surface
| on the topic"
|
| I think that in one of Woody Allen films a character
| complains about a restaurant that "the food is terrible and
| the portions are too small"
| wiredfool wrote:
| That's not how you use them. (at least not in my family). It
| was a read the whole thing deal. So much random knowledge.
|
| We had the WorldBooks, but ran across Encyclopedia Britannica
| in the school libraries. The Macropaedia was _far_ more in
| depth than the Micropeadia, or WorldBook at its best.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > It was a read the whole thing deal. So much random
| knowledge.
|
| Me too. And it taught me a skill that I think was the key
| to my professional success: learning how apparently
| unrelated things can give you the key to solving problems
| or understanding things that are important to you.
| paulddraper wrote:
| "Of course you couldn't use it as a source when writing a
| paper"
|
| Why not?
| manifoldgeo wrote:
| My college professors said that an encyclopedia article
| can't be cited because it's a tertiary source of
| information. That's considered too far abstracted from the
| original source of the info to be used as a citation.
| Primary sources are original documents like the U.S.
| Constitution; secondary sources are books about the U.S.
| Constitution that offer some kind of analysis by
| professionals; tertiary sources are aggregate articles
| citing multiple analyses, aggregating them together like a
| Reader's Digest but not contributing further to the
| discussion like a viewpoint or stance or new info.
|
| All of the above is explained in this article[1] (I just
| lazily searched for one).
|
| Sources: 1: https://crk.umn.edu/library/primary-secondary-
| and-tertiary-s...
| schoen wrote:
| Conversely, Wikipedia policies ask article editors to use
| only secondary and tertiary sources when writing the
| encyclopedia (related to the "no original research"
| policy).
| bamfly wrote:
| > Thousands of articles that only barely scratch the surface
| on the topic.
|
| Same as the Web. My experience has been that more often than
| not I hit "buy/pirate a book" surprisingly quickly when I
| start to dig past what's on Wikipedia, which is often _not
| that much_. Usually something from a university press.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Not only does Wikipedia have the same problem, they
| actively enforce it. If you try to add more detail,
| Wikipedia will reject your material on the grounds that
| they don't want it.
| bamfly wrote:
| Not just Wikipedia--often, the _rest of the Web_ doesn 't
| have much more than Wikipedia does (sometimes _less_ ,
| when Wikipedia sources heavily from books), unless you
| count ebooks. And sometimes the book you need is print-
| only, even if it's fairly recent.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> Of course you couldn 't use it as a source when writing a
| paper_
|
| Much the same as wikipedia and similar.
|
| But, like wikipedia, they were sometimes useful starting
| points with those short articles hopefully giving you a
| keyword or two, or a reference to other articles in the
| encyclopedia itself, so you had something useful to search
| the rest of the library (by hand or by asking the original
| intelligent search algorithm: a friendly librarian!) for
| fuller texts about.
|
| Also as a child I remember just randomly skipping to a page
| and finding some interesting fact, then following the
| references to elsewhere. I could spend hours learning random
| things I'd never actually need to know that way!
| detourdog wrote:
| What was the time period for this. Don't remember this at law.
| I got 14 year old handme down world books from my cousin and
| the giant Random House Encyclopedia in the 1970s. Growing up
| there was nothing but time and the ability to read.
| mindslight wrote:
| I've got fond memories of my Funk & Wagnalls Science
| encyclopedia. It was "my" encyclopedia - it wasn't useful for
| all school projects, but it was great to just read. As opposed
| to the school library's encyclopedia that was better for more
| direct queries, but filled with topics I didn't care enough
| about to read through linearly.
|
| I never associated it with being the budget option, but I don't
| think my set was comprised of different editions either. Also I
| think my parents could have afforded a Britannica if they had
| been turned on to the idea, but they were drawn to buying
| things incrementally from immediate sales channels. You're spot
| on about the marketing. I remember them always being
| prominently at the front of the store. From what I remember the
| first book was $1 or free with a grocery purchase or something
| like that, and then of course after reading through that I
| bugged my Mom to get the next one.
|
| (Also I can't help but notice Macaulay's "How Things Work" on
| the bookshelf in the article. Another hands-down classic that I
| would definitely push towards kids today even if they don't
| take to encyclopedias. I believe he's written a follow up book
| for modern tech, too)
| madcaptenor wrote:
| I had that one too!
| detourdog wrote:
| Macaulay taught Illustration at my college when that book was
| published. Before that book he made one's on single topic
| buildings like cathedral and castle.
| time0ut wrote:
| This takes me back. We had most of a set when I was a kid. I
| remember many times reading science articles over and over
| while eating cereal at the kitchen table. I guess not a lot has
| changed except I read wikipedia (or, let's be honest, HN)
| instead.
|
| My oldest child is a voracious reader, but she mostly reads
| fiction/fantasy. I got her a Neil deGrasse Tyson book that she
| liked. This article reminds me that I need to provide more of
| that sort of content.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I read all the scientific articles over-and-over and dipped
| into the other articles over time. Eventually I think I read
| much more than half of the full set. Not a bad thing. If we'd
| had smartphones back then I'm not sure I'd learnt _anything_
| useful.
| jhbadger wrote:
| F&W had a bad reputation (I had a copy as well as a child, for
| the same reasons, purchased a volume at a time at the grocery
| store), but it wasn't that bad. Microsoft eventually purchased
| the rights to it and many of the articles from their 1990s CD-
| ROM Encyclopedia (Encarta) were either taken directly from F&W
| or only slightly edited.
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| >When she saw the large photo of a shark spread across the spines
| of the 22 volumes, she frowned and said, "I don't want to see a
| big-ass shark every day when I walk in the room."
|
| I've got to be honest, reading this I went through a similar
| range of emotions as the author: Surprise that a print
| encyclopedia still exists, curiosity about it, and a nibbling
| desire to buy one. But I gotta agree with his wife: I don't want
| a huge shark photo on my bookshelf. It seems like an odd thing to
| force on a $1200 purchase, especially when it could easily be put
| on dust covers that could be removed to leave a more austere,
| proper looking reference book.
| BadCookie wrote:
| The 2022 edition has a dinosaur on it while the 2021 edition
| has eagles, for what it's worth. I am tempted to buy the eagle
| one for only $350 ... but I don't really have the space for it!
| stereolambda wrote:
| I for one find it sympathetic that they are trying to appeal to
| schoolchildren (who are supposed to use it) instead of adult
| tastes. I wonder how much is it based on market motivation? If
| you want a set of serious looking tomes as a visual thing,
| there are plenty of options on the market. If you are _really_
| serious, you can even re-bind them custom. Which I 'd find kind
| of ridiculous for this set, but I think this is what people do
| to have a lawyer-style consistent looking library for show. (Of
| course for some books that are old and breaking apart it's a
| good option anyway.)
|
| There is some value in having physical references, but for
| adults I would gravitate toward academic handbooks and such for
| topics that interest me. Could be ones for freshmen depending
| on my background, and ones from some years back should be okay
| for many subjects.
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| That's fair, and I think everyone is right on the money that
| the pictures make it more appealing to children and easier to
| put back in order.
|
| I suppose were I to entertain this idea for myself, since
| it's mostly a vanity/interest project rather than a
| functional one, it's not like it would be out of the question
| to have them re-bound. I wonder what the cost would be.
| coldpie wrote:
| I rather like it, actually. It's a cool photo and I find it to
| be a nice art piece, kind of like an art print on the wall,
| versus a bunch of brown book spines. But I understand your
| viewpoint, too. Worth remembering that their biggest customer-
| base by far is libraries and schools, where something like that
| might be a better fit than a home bookshelf.
| manicennui wrote:
| I don't understand the problem. Of course I don't understand
| the modern trend of trying to make one's decor as sterile and
| lifeless as possible.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| To each their own; you can put dust covers on it for a more
| austere look as well.
| parpfish wrote:
| I agree. The big shark photo would be fine in a school library
| or classroom (especially if it helps younger users put volumes
| back in the correct place), but it's completely out of place
| for a home library.
|
| I remember the world book as having brown/beige with gold
| letters. It was a boring look that actually seemed to give it
| authority. The photo on the cover/spine makes it seem like it's
| desperate for your attention. Almost like clickbait working
| it's way into the analog world
| mayormcmatt wrote:
| My parents bought a set of World Book when my sister and I were
| in elementary school. It might be the most important purchase
| they ever made for our education, as it not only helped with our
| information gathering for reports and whatnot, but was
| entertainment for us when bored. We loved just hopping into a
| random page and reading about whatever that thing was. It made me
| the info-junkie I am today, I think.
|
| This has got me thinking about buying a set for my friends with
| kids (I'll check with them first and see if they have the shelf
| real estate).
| jamesash wrote:
| Bought a World Book set at last year's Berkshire Hathaway
| meeting, for something like $650 including shipping. Awesome
| deal.
|
| My kids (10, 8) earn "check marks" for each 20 minute chunk of
| time they spend reading it, which they can trade in for various
| goodies. Usually before they go to sleep
|
| Edit: Also, they have used it for school projects. 2nd grader
| had projects on Poland, Neil Armstrong, and pygmy rattlesnakes
| this year. Very handy as an introduction to a wide variety of
| topics.
| mayormcmatt wrote:
| Whoa, that's really affordable! Thanks for the tip.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > Opening up a volume of the World Book took me back in time.
|
| > ...
|
| > As for its content, the 2023 edition doesn't shy away from the
| contemporary.
|
| Yeah, there's a weird schism there. I am considering now trolling
| the local thrift stores and antique malls for a complete
| encyclopedia set -- but one perhaps from the 70's or 80's. I'll
| save a bundle and can go back to a world that frankly seemed a
| lot more optimistic.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| If you do, make sure you read the section on the USSR. See how
| optimistic it seems then.
| eesmith wrote:
| https://archive.org/details/worldbookencyclo20worl/page/180/.
| ..
|
| > U.S.S.R. stands for the Union of Soviet Socialist
| Republics, the official name of Russia. See Russia.
|
| For Russia, https://archive.org/details/worldbookencyclo0016u
| nse_f8g2/pa...
|
| I don't see much optimism, but I didn't read it closely.
| There is a lot of "it sucks to live in Russia."
| vkazanov wrote:
| This is a massive exaggeration. My daughter reads encyclopedias I
| buy for her, just as I did.l back in the day. And it wasn't
| horribly popular to be the book reading kid 30 years ago as well.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| We had a printed encyclopedia growing up - I assume it was bought
| used, but don't know. My Dad was an academic which must be part
| of why he saw value in it. I forget which encyclopedia it was,
| but something pretty comprehensive occupying a couple of feet of
| shelf space.
|
| As a kid I read the entire encyclopedia cover to cover from A-Z!
| Hard to say what I retained from that, but no doubt quite a bit,
| as well as the curiosities that were satisfied even if the
| content was later forgotten. I couldn't see doing the same with
| WikiPedia - there's something about the finite physicality of a
| set of encyclopedias that does seem to beckon for them to be
| read!
| somat wrote:
| Growing up in the 80's we had a set of 1960's world book
| encyclopedias. I would read them for fun. Sort of the same sort
| of thing as hitting random on wikipedia today, but in
| alphabetical order. Admittedly I suspect my love of reading is
| largely due to not having a tv growing up.
|
| Some people say they read the dictionary for fun, which I never
| understood, dictionaries are boring. encyclopedias are much more
| interesting. (probably why I am unable to spell worth a damn
| today)
|
| And if you were wondering C was the best volume, although I cant
| remember why.
| jkubicek wrote:
| I liked the old encyclopedias so much more than the modern
| ones, as a kid it was fun to look up articles that were
| significantly outdated. "Here's an artist's rendering of life
| on Venus may look like"
| G3rn0ti wrote:
| In Germany the ,,Brockhaus Enzyklopadie" used to have its place
| in every academic house hold. The 24 volume version filled an
| entire cupboard on its own, cost thousands but looked great with
| the volumes' red shaded back and golden rims. Especially historic
| and technical articles were quite large and detailed and helped
| me with many homework assignments in the age before the Internet.
| They were much better than the typical CD-ROM based
| encyclopedias.
|
| I am lucky to own the last print edition from back in 2006
| (inherited from my father) that even contains an entry explaining
| what ,,Wikipedia" is. My kids never want to use it. It's
| depressing and amusing at the same time.
| Tomte wrote:
| I have Der Kleine Brockhaus (one volume) from 1925. I'm
| sometimes reading it for fun.
|
| For example, "Feminism" is "effeminate nature in men; also:
| women's movement".
|
| It's a fascinating view into not so long ago.
| devsegal wrote:
| I have a picture of myself with about 22 encyclopedias in the
| back of a van. Memories I would pay millions to see in Video/VR.
| acadapter wrote:
| Does anyone know of a good English translation of Naturalis
| Historia, by the way?
| irusensei wrote:
| I remember using the Barsa[0] encyclopedia as a source for
| homework. We went to my grandfather's house where this imposing
| collection of red and gold hard cover books rested at the higher
| shelf. Even an adult had to get on a chair to reach there. I'm
| pretty sure is still there almost as a trophy or decoration
| piece. It's probably useless nowadays and I'm pretty sure it
| still lists the Soviet Union and Rhodesia as countries. Back when
| I've used those books they already had the smell of old books.
|
| And yes I would love to have those books for myself.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barsa_(encyclopedia)
| dna_polymerase wrote:
| So arstechnica now has native ads?
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| > Aside from the shark photo and the print error, I am
| genuinely proud to own a modern World Book Encyclopedia. And I
| say that freely, having purchased the set out of pocket myself.
|
| If the author had to buy it with his own money, it's a pretty
| lame sponsored post.
| TylerE wrote:
| There are ways to get around that, e.g. the author
| legitimately buys it, but for some reason his payment for
| that story is $1500 more than usual.
| toast0 wrote:
| Sure, it's an arm of Conde Nast, native ads are a staple of
| mass market publishing.
| alaxsxaq wrote:
| I still have great memories laying on the living room floor
| reading volume after volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica during
| family TV evenings. The set came with a language dictionary
| covering 5-10 languages; I spent endless hours "learning" Russian
| and Arabic from that book. I still have those books and the
| cabinet they were sold with.
| midnitewarrior wrote:
| Random Gen Z-er: "Oh look, there's a dead tree version of
| Wikipedia."
|
| Gen X: Dead stare, mouth open, winces, grips Encarta CDs tightly
| didgetmaster wrote:
| I inherited the set of WB Encyclopedias my parents bought for our
| family when I was a kid. We could not sell them in the yard sale
| and the library didn't want them as a donation.
|
| I decided to keep them as a 'decoration' for my new office. There
| is some nostalgia for me and I will probably crack one open now
| and then.
|
| I think it is naive to believe that just because the Internet is
| full of disinformation that alters regularly at the speed of
| light; that a print version will protect you from that. While the
| older versions are less likely to be infiltrated; the biases have
| existed long enough that plenty of propaganda has made it into
| print.
| dudeinhawaii wrote:
| I credit my grandma's encyclopedia Britannica from the 70s with
| sparking my interest in engineering. In particular, there were
| these very detailed diagrams of every stage of the moon landing
| as well as diagrams of rockets from the Mercury to the Saturn V.
| It was fairly magical in a time before Wikipedia.
|
| I think the fact that it was higher-level and structured
| benefited me. Nowadays it's much easier to dive deep into
| something which is kind of beautiful. If you want to see the
| detailed schematics for the Saturn V, it's a click away. If you
| want to sit down and program on a simulated guidance computer,
| you can (MoonJS).
|
| I do wonder if my younger self would be able to "go broad" when
| presented with information this easy to attain. I notice my
| nephews have a tendency to "go deep" and at age 8 they're diving
| into every nuanced detail of something like the Titanic and then
| re-creating it in Minecraft. I envy that access to information at
| a young age but I wonder if it prevents them from going broad
| when they're fixated on a particular topic for a year.
|
| Overall, I think I'd still prefer Wikipedia if I was born today.
| noefingway wrote:
| I still have my 1966 Britannica. Learned a lot as a kid just
| picking a volume and reading random articles. I hate to give it
| up.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| $1200 for the set, in case you were wondering like I was.
|
| https://www.worldbook.com/worldbookencyclopedia2023
| [deleted]
| bookofjoe wrote:
| This got my attention. I recall reading my World Book
| encyclopedia back when I was a kid in the 1950s for many, many
| absorbing hours. Tremendous enjoyment.
|
| I see that Amazon's selling the 2023 edition for $1200 BUT World
| Book is selling the 2022 edition new for $500 and the 2021
| edition new for $400. There are many eBay sellers offering the
| 2020 edition used for $300.
|
| This might be the best present EVER for my now 7-year-old
| grandson who can read but whose parents limit his iPad use to 1
| hour/day.
| dizzydes wrote:
| One thing that the internet is (mostly) missing here is
| discoverability, finding something entirely random and new as you
| flick through.
| gen220 wrote:
| Unaffiliated, but https://wiby.me/surprise/ is great. :)
| gen220 wrote:
| Born in the late 90s, I spent an absurd amount of time on
| wikipedia in my teens. It's lack of depth on common topics at the
| time led me to libraries and the world of books.
|
| As an adult, it's amazing to see how far Wikipedia has come. In
| spite of its perennial and well-documented issues, it has to be
| one of humanity's biggest accomplishments.
|
| I think teaching "the youth" how to efficiently investigate and
| retrieve information is probably one of the best skills we can
| pass on. In 2023, I'm not sure if there's much utility for a
| "generic" encyclopedia in that skill tree. Although encyclopedias
| with an intentionally-constrained focus are still pretty
| valuable, IME.
| T3RMINATED wrote:
| [dead]
| westcort wrote:
| I used the world book (2021) to reduce the need for computer use
| in my kids. They have computers, but they are Alphamsmart Danas
| and they can use them to write, code in C, play chess, and read
| books I load on there.
|
| The World Book has great articles and I learn plenty from it too.
| One unique thing is the authors of each article are listed. When
| I read an interesting article, I email the author and engage with
| them further, which often leads to more interesting insights.
| zafka wrote:
| My quiet, somewhat socially anxious mother sold World Book door
| to door in the late sixties to get her family a copy for free. I
| really think those volumes were greatly responsible for the
| positive trends in my life. I loved reading the World book and
| following where the bread crumbs led. As I write this more comes
| back- I remember "E" was probably the best starting point with
| all the electricity articles. Amazingly, although not detailed,
| the recipe for gunpowder was there. Ah the memories :) Thank you
| World Book and most of all Thank You Mom!!
| agambrahma wrote:
| Similar, except my favorite was the combination W-X-Y-Z
|
| Lots of history in "W" :-|
| zafka wrote:
| I remember redirecting from article to article. Sometimes I
| would end in a loop. Even back then I sometimes became
| suspicious that unknown forces were hiding some things from
| me. Too many times tantalizing subjects would be mentioned
| and then dropped with no further information available.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| I had Encyclopedia Britannica in the house as a kid and it was
| great to just open up a random volume and pick something to read
| about.
|
| A few times I made an attempt to read the whole thing from A to
| Z. Never got very far, but I know a lot about aardvarks.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I would totally read this in the dentist waiting room, instead of
| looking at my phone or the TV.
|
| Everyone thought vinyl records were dead, but here we are:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/64919126
|
| Still, I'm not buying a set. Takes up too much space.
| igammarays wrote:
| I would buy a historical edition of Brittanica, not a 2023
| version of the World Book. It would be eye-opening to see how
| people thought of the world before the speed and hyper-
| connectivity of the internet.
| toast0 wrote:
| If you have a 'buy nothing' community, just lurk on there. Many
| enclopedia sets go, I got a 1990 Brittanica with the yearly
| update volume for nothing a couple years ago. If nothing else,
| I've got monitor risers for life.
| cxr wrote:
| > First, I'll be honest: The existence of an up-to-date print
| encyclopedia in 2023 took me by surprise.
|
| In contrast, the fact that there is only one remaining (English-
| language) print encyclopedia is something that took me by
| surprise. I'm not sure how many is reasonable to expect, but I'd
| have thought it was >1.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| My favorite reference book is "Desk Ref", which is the larger
| fatter version of "Pocket Ref".
|
| Obviously everything in it can be looked up online, but I just
| don't like being tied to having an internet connection. I don't
| have the greatest memory in the world, and am happy to outsource
| my knowledge to an outboard secondary brain, so actual physical
| reference books are quite reassuring to me.
| lifefeed wrote:
| I don't find modern encyclopedias interesting, but the older
| encyclopedias (and textbooks) are fascinating. Specifically I
| love reading entries before major changes to a field. Like cells
| in 1950, right before the double helix structure of DNA was
| discovered. Or Germany in the inter war period, when everyone
| knew it was unstable, but no one was quite sure what that meant.
| taeric wrote:
| plate tectonics would be a fun one to look into.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Even into the mid 90s, the extinction of the dinosaurs was an
| unsolved question. It's really interesting to see how people
| thought about this over time.
| ravenstine wrote:
| I don't know what modern encyclopedias are like (assuming
| you're referring to physical ones), but I really do think I
| learned more from encyclopedias and textbooks than from class
| when I was in school. Some teachers were brilliant and could
| teach effectively, but in most cases I really was better off
| just reading through the books, which I actually enjoyed.
|
| If modern encyclopedias are like Wikipedia, then I can see how
| you wouldn't find them interesting. Although Wikipedia does
| have interesting information within it, it's now written so
| verbosely that my eyes glaze over most of the time. Yeah,
| there's simple.wikipedia.org, but it's not nearly complete
| enough.
|
| > Like cells in 1950, right before the double helix structure
| of DNA was discovered.
|
| I had a textbook in middle school that was so old that it said
| bacteria were believed to be a form of plant!
| cubefox wrote:
| > If modern encyclopedias are like Wikipedia, then I can see
| how you wouldn't find them interesting. Although Wikipedia
| does have interesting information within it, it's now written
| so verbosely that my eyes glaze over most of the time. Yeah,
| there's simple.wikipedia.org, but it's not nearly complete
| enough.
|
| The problem with the writing in Wikipedia articles is that
| they are often extremely detailed in certain aspects, because
| more and more people kept adding specific bits to it. But
| then often the overall cohesiveness of the article is lost,
| and it becomes hard to read.
|
| The problem is that Wikipedia articles usually don't have
| single authors which would ensure the article as a whole is
| compelling.
|
| There is actually an encyclopedia which does much better in
| this regard: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It's a
| free online source, like Wikipedia, and it is limited to
| topics of philosophy, but it reads so much better. Even
| though many of its articles are quite long. Each article is
| written by an expert in the field. It is _the_ encyclopedia
| in analytic philosophy.
|
| One problem is that sometimes articles are slightly biased
| because the author has certain views, and this isn't at all
| obvious unless you're already an expert in this topic. Still,
| most articles are great.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _One problem is that sometimes articles are slightly
| biased because the author has certain views,_
|
| I just assumed that I hadn't done enough philosophising,
| and had come to the Wrong conclusion. Glad to see it's not
| just me!
| FpUser wrote:
| Encyclopedia and World Atlas were my best friends since I learned
| how to read. Still have very warm feelings.
| kvetching wrote:
| I have Great Books of the Western World by Encyclopaedia
| Britannica This is a great set to have in case of some sort of
| information apocalypse.
| robwwilliams wrote:
| Many older generation scholars had the same gut feeling about the
| 1911 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica and claimed,
| with some justice, that it was the last "truly" comprehensive
| summary of human knowledge.
|
| Of course this was due to the mismatch between the maximum
| practical and economical size of an encyclopedia and the rate of
| gain of knowledge beginning in the early 20th century.
|
| When I was 23 years old in 1976 I won a $125 award at Alta Bates
| Hospital in Berkeley for a faster way to stock the wards. I
| bought a gorgeous leather-bound gilt-edged copy of the 1911
| Britannica for precisely $125 at a huge used bookstore in
| downtown Oakland---all 29 volumes, each volume just under 1000
| pages.
|
| That 11th edition has always held a place of honor in our home
| (well, my significant other does not have quite the same warm
| feelings as I do since $125 was a bucket-load of money when we
| were getting started).
|
| It makes for interesting reading.
|
| It would be amusing to add the World Book encyclopedia of 2044 to
| the collection although I doubt my kids or grandkids would be
| quite as amused as me.
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