The End of Encylopedia Britannica

[frussell]

"Among the few possessions he left to his heirs was a set of Encyclopedia Britannica in storage at the Lindbergh Palace Hotel under the names Ari and Uzi Tenenbaum."

 

[John in Covina]

One thing is that reading old editions does give a hint as to some of the outlooks and attitudes from the time of publishing.

 

[Tango Yankee]

Regarding the current state of the trend of using online sources as references for papers and other research, Edward wrote:

The answer is probably to put it in a web page elsewhere, and then cite the page. I presume they are trying to require people in general to not post stuff with no source to verify, but that certainly isn't going to favour those with reliable, useful primary research.

It is much more common now. At one time only or mostly citing online sources was regarded as a sign of a student far too lazy to go to the library. There is still an element of that, but as the availability of reliable, online academic sources has improved, they are often a superior way of accessing much more up to date material (especially primary resources such as government consultation papers, court judgements and so on). At least that is the case in my own field (law).

When I first started working on my Masters (online program) I tended to use online sources, until I discovered the online library my school has. I could put in the same sort of search terms as I used in Google and instead of web pages it would give me links to books, down to the page the subject was on! I loved it! Although the books were electronic in form they were actual books and were cited as such. It was up-to-date, too--there were times when I referenced books that had been published only a few months previously. Once I discovered that I rarely cited web pages.

Referring back to the original topic, I grew up with I believe a late-50s or very early '60s World Book Encyclopedia in the house. As far back as I can remember I would pull a book at random and start reading. One of the cool things about it was the section on the human body. It had a number of pages that were overlays with each one showing a deeper view of the inside of the body--muscles, organs, arteries and veins, etcetera. I liked it. I don't know how often I pored over the pages that showed color drawings of automobiles from the very first ones all the way to the "present"; same with the pages on aircraft and submarines.


Regards,
Tom