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I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

arstechnica.com

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Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#141

Post by washadjeffmad »

tmastern wrote: post #113
jasode wrote: post #25

>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. T…

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...

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.

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#142

Post by bamfly »

jandrese wrote: post #46
jasode wrote: post #25

>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. T…

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…

> 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.

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#143

Post by LeoPanthera »

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.

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#144

Post by thaumasiotes »

bamfly wrote: post #142
jandrese wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

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.

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#145

Post by dudeinhawaii »

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.

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#146

Post by bawolff »

dpedu wrote: post #59
JKCalhoun wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

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.

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#147

Post by bamfly »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #144
bamfly wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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.

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#149

Post by sorokod »

jandrese wrote: post #46
jasode wrote: post #25

>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. T…

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…

"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"

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#150

Post by paulddraper »

jandrese wrote: post #46
jasode wrote: post #25

>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. T…

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…

"Of course you couldn't use it as a source when writing a paper"

Why not?

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