Like an Uncut Cake: The enduring appeal of the hard-copy encyclopedia

Oh, man! What a temptation. I grew up in a house that my father filled with books, including the World Book Encyclopedia which I liked but the book resource I treasured the most was a multi-volume OED set he had bought used.

The which year is a big question. I found a complete set from the early 1950s at Half Price Books in the books by the yard section. The entry for Christmas in this set calls it a pagan ritual. More recent editions no longer refer to it that way. The editorializing would be an interesting bit of research not only between release years, but between publishers as well. Did one start a trend the others followed? Was it always the same "leader"? I bet there's some library science folks that already know these answers.

> Isn't one always tempted to wait for the following year's?

It's worth noting that articles are already (at least) a year out of date when you buy it, because that elegantly-bound version has gone through a long editorial and production process. A potential solution to that problem is to complement the paper version with World Book Online ($250/year).

You want the 11th edition of the Encyclopdia Britannica.

ok, I gotta admit the binding art for this year is badass

As a kid growing up in the boonies in the 80s with no internet, no cable, and only 3 networks, I had a lot of time for reading. I was almost one of these people. I don't know that I ever read them from first page to last page of each book, but I would pick a letter, read until I was bored, and do it all over again. Some stuff I totally did not care about nor remember now. Over the course of time, I know I read a lot of the encyclopedia set we had.

When I was young I was gifted a full encyclopedia set along with another one called “tell me why”. This was pre-internet. I was utterly fascinated with all the different stuff in each alphabet and read the whole thing.

It really opened up my mind and made me who I am today. Wikipedia rabbit holes come close but not quite the same.

I read ours, albeit maybe skipping a few boring topics. The great thing about it (vs. searching for something specific) is that you never know what you're going to get!

I think Encyclopedia Britannica was considered the top dog, but they have ceased printing new versions as of 2010.

World book, I think is the easiest to read and engaging. I read 2 of them A-Z as a bored kid in class and they were far more absorbable to my young mind at the time than the Britannica.

Plus you can apparently still buy new & modern copies as they continue to stay in print.

Encarta was incredible. I was in high school in the 90s but we didn’t have internet at home, just at school. I came 3rd in a school district computer competition (it wasn’t programming but doing tasks in Word and some other general stuff). Anyways long story short a copy of Encarta was my prize and I was blown away. It felt like an “offline internet” to me. Spent the whole summer pretty much reading everything. Good times.