The End of Encylopedia Britannica

[TimeWarpWife]

It's a sad, sad day, IMO. With the invention of e-book readers, in addition to the internet, I fear that someday real books will be a distant memory. One of my favorite things to do is visit used bookstores, even though I admit I have a Kindle - we have very limited space in our home, and I'm voracious reader, so the Kindle saves lots of space. Still, this is sad news. <heavy sigh>

 

[LizzieMaine]

With all this talk about how "outdated" print encyclopedias are, I took down a random volume of my 1938 Britannica this afternoon and leafed thru it over lunch. And the thing is, a great many of the articles appearing in it aren't outdated at all -- I took down Volume 20, Sars to Soc, and found perfectly usable information on a wide, wide range of topics, from the history and manufacture of screws to the life of Shakespeare to the operating principle of the sewing machine to the teachings of Shintoism to the practice of Sericulture to the technique of Silversmithing to the various kinds of Snakes to the form and composition of Sonatas, and all of it written and edited by acknowledged authorities in each field. Granted, there isn't much in the way of transitory popular culture topics of the sort you'll find on Wikipedia (although the section on Slang is an excellent time capsule of post-WW1 jargon), but that sort of thing isn't what I go to an encyclopedia to read about.

Moral -- don't throw away those old volumes just because they tell you they're obsolete. There's an awful lot in them that's perfectly usable, and perhaps a good bit more reliable than what you'll find online.

 

[Trombone]

all editions are being recalled by the ministry of truth for corrections! :eusa_doh:

down with big brother
down with big brother
down with big brother
down with big brother

 

[1961MJS]

It's a sad, sad day, IMO. With the invention of e-book readers, in addition to the internet, I fear that someday real books will be a distant memory. One of my favorite things to do is visit used bookstores, even though I admit I have a Kindle - we have very limited space in our home, and I'm voracious reader, so the Kindle saves lots of space. Still, this is sad news. <heavy sigh>

Hi

Well, read the book "One Second After" by William R. Forstchen and you'll buy paper for your necessary information. Paperbacks don't need batteries, or need an amazon cloud, or...

I check prices, my son bought me a Kindle for Xmas and I'm using it, but mainly for the FREE books like the Three Musketeers and the older stuff. Some Kindle books are more expensive than buying real paper too.

Just my $0.04

 

[Undertow]

Hi

Well, read the book "One Second After" by William R. Forstchen and you'll buy paper for your necessary information. Paperbacks don't need batteries, or need an amazon cloud, or...

I check prices, my son bought me a Kindle for Xmas and I'm using it, but mainly for the FREE books like the Three Musketeers and the older stuff. Some Kindle books are more expensive than buying real paper too.

Just my $0.04

This was more-or-less what I was arguing. You don't need batteries, or passwords, or biometric chips and Federation Credits, etc. etc, just to read a paperback book.

What happens when a company like Amazon marks your profile to be deleted due to some kind of mix up? You lose your entire library? Or what happens when service is down due to a bad connection? Or some "hacker" steals your account? Etc, etc.

Online content is only as reliable as the middle-man who's bringing it to you. A good book can also save your life.

 

[O2BSwank]

My comments are a little out of sequence on this subject but it is sad. My parents bought a set in the early sixties, bought the senior and junior series, both bound in leather with gold printing on the covers. I bought a similar set, but in black leather for my family in the nineties. I remember that my daughter said don't get rid of these until I graduate high school! This was only a couple of years ago. At one time she complained that they were obsolete and out of date, but really this was only a criticism of her father's belief in the old time value of the printed word. I used to beat her finding definitions while she was doing her vocabulary homework . I was using a dictionary and she was using a computer.

I think that one of my strongest feelings associated with the encyclopaedia was the belief that parents bought it as a tool for their children's education and a symbol of their commitment and hope for their children's success in school and later in life. I know that it was expensive, I think it cost my folks around a thousand dollars and they paid it off in payments. But for working people it was a symbol of a hope for their children, of a belief in the American Dream. My parents were so committed to the success of their kids, they paid for twelve years of Catholic school tuition, and helped with college expenses for myself and my two brothers. I try to convey that to my kids, one a grad and one just starting college now.

I remember that the salesman who sold it to my parents told them that you could educate yourself using the encyclopaedia Brittanica. That you could read up on any subject just like going to college. My dad who only received a grammar school education, even up into his eighties, would read volume after volume on who knows how many different subjects trying to increase his knowledge of the world. Maybe I wont get rid of my families set.

 

[I Adore Film Noir]

I remember a set, I loved those books! On a rainy day I'd sit in a rocking chair, pull my feet up and enter other worlds. Does anyone remember The Book of Knowledge?

 

[Kmadden]

Great!
We've seen the death of telegrams, telephone booths, typewriters — and now the Encylopedia Britannica.
I hate this day and age!

 

[Juliet]

Sad, indeed.
Rather surprised me, I must say, in a most unpleasant way.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

"In the 1950s, having the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the bookshelf was akin to a station wagon in the garage or a black-and-white Zenith in the den"

I'm reminded of a quote out of a song "Another piece of America's lost." Obviously this is not a strictly American thing, but looking at it from the point of view of an American, there is a bit of Americana and nostalgia involved in this news.

 

[Edward]

Great!
We've seen the death of telegrams, telephone booths, typewriters — and now the Encylopedia Britannica.
I hate this day and age!

It's not dead, it's only the delivery mechanism is changing.

 

[Gromulus]

My comments are a little out of sequence on this subject but it is sad. My parents bought a set in the early sixties, bought the senior and junior series, both bound in leather with gold printing on the covers. I bought a similar set, but in black leather for my family in the nineties. I remember that my daughter said don't get rid of these until I graduate high school! This was only a couple of years ago. At one time she complained that they were obsolete and out of date, but really this was only a criticism of her father's belief in the old time value of the printed word. I used to beat her finding definitions while she was doing her vocabulary homework . I was using a dictionary and she was using a computer.

I think that one of my strongest feelings associated with the encyclopaedia was the belief that parents bought it as a tool for their children's education and a symbol of their commitment and hope for their children's success in school and later in life. I know that it was expensive, I think it cost my folks around a thousand dollars and they paid it off in payments. But for working people it was a symbol of a hope for their children, of a belief in the American Dream. My parents were so committed to the success of their kids, they paid for twelve years of Catholic school tuition, and helped with college expenses for myself and my two brothers. I try to convey that to my kids, one a grad and one just starting college now.

I remember that the salesman who sold it to my parents told them that you could educate yourself using the encyclopaedia Brittanica. That you could read up on any subject just like going to college. My dad who only received a grammar school education, even up into his eighties, would read volume after volume on who knows how many different subjects trying to increase his knowledge of the world. Maybe I wont get rid of my families set.

Excellent commentary and very true.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

It's not dead, it's only the delivery mechanism is changing.

Still, today's overreliance on technology at the exclusion of everything else gives me an unsettling Titanic vibe.

 

[Pompidou]

Still, today's overreliance on technology at the exclusion of everything else gives me an unsettling Titanic vibe.

Kinda like the burning of the Library of Alexandria. The way I see things, any catastrophe great enough to wipe the digital age off the face of the planet wouldn't leave a situation conducive to protecting books. On a personal level, having an entire Brittanica on your iPad is a lot easier to save from a fire than a whole boom shelf of them. If they're still as huge as the set my parents got my sister and I as kids, at least.

Our set is still up in the attic from the late 80s. Came with a great books collection too. But yeah, there's always the risk of a global nuclear war with emp blasts destroying electronics as we know it, but there's a much greater chance of a flood, fire or the like destroying your property. One further consolation might be that eMedia isn't one monolithic file format. My kindle books and my iBooks never mix, for example.

 

[Feraud]

Moral -- don't throw away those old volumes just because they tell you they're obsolete. There's an awful lot in them that's perfectly usable, and perhaps a good bit more reliable than what you'll find online.

Agreed. I don't mind technology but I am not buying the "obsolete" nonsense.
John Doe may claim his is carrying around the complete works of Shakespeare, Mozart, and the most up to date scientific information on his handy dandy gaget but the truth is 99% of people never reference such material. An encyclopedia in the hand is worth two on the gadget...so to speak.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Agreed. I don't mind technology but I am not buying the "obsolete" nonsense.
John Doe may claim his is carrying around the complete works of Shakespeare, Mozart, and the most up to date scientific information on his handy dandy gaget but the truth is 99% of people never reference such material. An encyclopedia in the hand is worth two on the gadget...so to speak.

Sad to say, John Doe is more likely to be accessing porn than Shakespeare's Twelfth Night on his devices.

 

[MisterCairo]

I remember a set, I loved those books! On a rainy day I'd sit in a rocking chair, pull my feet up and enter other worlds. Does anyone remember The Book of Knowledge?

We have the 1981 set of Book of Knowledge with yearly Year Books between 1980 and 1984!

 

[Pompidou]

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/14/britannica-define-outdated

NY Times has a debate panel on this topic.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I have an edition of the EB from 1984 or so -- I bought it new and had to make payments on it -- and to this day I use it at home. Why? Because every so often, it would take me longer to turn on my computer, log in to the 'Net (to save money I have only dial-up access right now), and search with Ixquick, than it does to find the volume ("Piranha to Scurfy," say) and look it up right there.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I have an edition of the EB from 1984 or so -- I bought it new and had to make payments on it -- and to this day I use it at home. Why? Because every so often, it would take me longer to turn on my computer, log in to the 'Net (to save money I have only dial-up access right now), and search with Ixquick, than it does to find the volume ("Piranha to Scurfy," say) and look it up right there.

I can sympathize. When I had dial-up it would take between 5-10 minutes to "warm up."