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They won't pull it. They will change it and you won't know. "Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia."
I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print
21–30 of 199 posts
Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print
#22I 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.
Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print
#23I 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.
plate tectonics would be a fun one to look into.
Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print
#24> 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 b…
~$28-50 a book for a large hard bound full color print doesn't sound unreasonable?
Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print
#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. 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.
Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print
#26> 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.
Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print
#27Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print
#28I 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.
Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print
#29Does anyone know of a good English translation of Naturalis Historia, by the way?
Re: I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print
#30In 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.
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).