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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

#191

Post by wolverine876 »

jhbadger wrote: post #125
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…

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.

> F&W had a bad reputation

What was its reputation?

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#192

Post by smugma »

function_seven wrote: post #120
floren wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you remember how much the B volume cost?

I want to say $39.99, but I'm not entirely sure of that number.

Off by an order of magnitude, “Funk & Wagnalls volumes were typically sold in supermarkets as part of a “book-a-week” program. When Mr. Moser came up with the idea of reducing the normal charge to just pennies for the first volume…

The entire 27-volume Funk & Wagnalls set — along with the free two-volume dictionary, another sweetener dreamed up by Mr. Moser — cost a little more than $100.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/obituaries/Stanley-Moser-...

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#193

Post by function_seven »

smugma wrote: post #192
function_seven wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to say $39.99, but I'm not entirely sure of that number.

Off by an order of magnitude, “Funk & Wagnalls volumes were typically sold in supermarkets as part of a “book-a-week” program. When Mr. Moser came up with the idea of reducing the normal charge to just pennies for the first volume… The entire 27-volume Funk & Wagnalls set — along with the free two-volume dictionary, another sweetener dreamed up by Mr. Moser — cost a little more than $100.” https://www.nytimes.com/202…

So this is how I find out how profoundly cheap my dad was :).

Thanks.

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#194

Post by bradknowles »

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…

When I was growing up, I was fortunate that we did have an Encyclopedia in the house. My grandfather was a regional sales manager for Fields Enterprises, and sold World Book Encyclopedias. So, we had a full set.

It had all sorts of wonderful things inside, and I remember countless times asking my parents questions after questions and they'd get exasperated with me and tell me to go look it up myself. Six hours later, I would have missed dinner and it would be way past my bed time -- and I would have no concept of how much time had passed.

By sixth grade, I was reading at the college level, and my school had no idea what to do with me.

By the time I got to college and had a job shelving books in the main library on campus, I found out about Encyclopedia Britannica, which was clearly at least twice as big as World Book, and I found out also much more authoritative.

I owe my entire career, and pretty much everything I am to the encyclopedias we had when I was a kid, and my grandfather who made sure we had a set.

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#195

Post by bradknowles »

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…

As a kid, encyclopedias are great sources of broad information. You probably don't need to go any deeper than they do.

As an adult, encyclopedias are a great starting point, but cannot do anything more than scratch the surface of any subject they cover.

That's just the way it is, I think.

The key advantage that printed encyclopedias have over Wikipedia is that the experts writing the articles are chosen by editors and have to be able to demonstrate broad and authoritative knowledge of the subject, before they're allowed to put those words on paper. Not so with Wikipedia.

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#196

Post by Turing_Machine »

function_seven wrote: post #193
smugma wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off by an order of magnitude, “Funk & Wagnalls volumes were typically sold in supermarkets as part of a “book-a-week” program. When Mr. Moser came up with the idea of reducing the normal charge to just pennies for the first volume… The entire 27-volume Funk & Wagnalls set — along with the free two-volume dictionary, another sweetener dreamed up by Mr. Moser — cost a little more than $100.” https://www.nytimes.com/202…

So this is how I find out how profoundly cheap my dad was :). Thanks.

Well, $3.99 in 1953 (the first year the encyclopedia was offered in supermarkets, ATW) is $45.50 now, according to https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.

For 27 volumes, that works out to $1228.50. Your dad wasn't that cheap. :-)

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#197

Post by jjtheblunt »

wolverine876 wrote: post #190
jjtheblunt wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know what Barnes & Noble carries in stores or what dictionaries are printed now. Paper dictionaries have limited space for obvious reasons. The paper dictionary that ignored those restrictions, the Oxford English Dictionary OED, was 20+ volumes. Now most dictionaries are online like encylopedias, again for obvious reasons, and the leading ones at least have etymologies: The OED is the definitive historical di…

That’s great info and i hadn’t looked to the different versions of current dictionaries. Thanks

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#198

Post by jhbadger »

wolverine876 wrote: post #191
jhbadger wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> F&W had a bad reputation What was its reputation?

That it wasn't a "serious" encyclopedia, probably due to its low cost. Another comment mentioned being allowed to use Encyclopedia Britannica and no other encyclopedia in school because it supposedly was the "most authoritative". It also was the most expensive while F&W was the cheapest (World Book was in between in cost).

Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print

#199

Post by Projectiboga »

The original Encyclopedias in the 1700s was a major catalyst similar in impact to the internet for us. Especially when specialized ones developed in the 19th century. The cool thing about using a Encyclopedia is the random encounters with things outside of your initial search. I'd argue it has a higher information density in your field of view when you look at a pair of pages. Of course I'm an early Gen-X who continued to use research libraries well into the 21st century. I still advise youth to use library time as part of research as the serendipity of finding other information both within you interest in the general shelf area, seeing similar periodicals and even just other articles within a journal. And any university's reference sections are loaded with simply amazing stuff ontop of their information index subscriptions.
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