No More Encylopedia Britannica Books

Geico266

Geico266

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Encyclopedia Britannica has decided to stop printing and selling the book sets. For the past 244 years they have been selling books for the home, but the internet has stopped that.

My mom bought a set and we used them for studies. I can remember tfhinking if I read he entire set I would know everything. Turns out that is true. ;) :rofl:

Anyone else have Encyclopedias in their homes?
 
I don't recall libraries having them anymore, at least in New Jersey or in the larger Nebraska cities.
 
We grew up with them in my parent's home. It was a 1954 edition, with the custom shelving unit and World Atlas that stood upright in a special slot in the top shelf.

When we moved to Texas, it broke my heart to toss the whole set in the dumpster -- but there was no point in them anymore. Heck, they didn't even have the Viet Nam War in them yet, and virtually every country on the African Continent was wrong.

My sisters and I spent thousands of hours perusing those pages, pressing flowers in them, and seemingly never getting to the topic we were originally looking up. I learned more there than I ever did in school -- but time marches on. The printed page is a thing of the past, and libraries are soon to follow.
 
Geico266 said:
Anyone else have Encyclopedias in their homes?
Click to expand...
Unfortunately I do. Now that I am serious about downsizing what can I do with them besides putting a couple volumes in the trash each week?
 
Enclopedias, newspapers, compact disks, paper sectionals, blckbuster video... All destroyed by the Internet
 
Geico266 said:
Encyclopedia Britannica has decided to stop printing and selling the book sets. For the past 244 years they have been selling books for the home, but the internet has stopped that.

My mom bought a set and we used them for studies. I can remember tfhinking if I read he entire set I would know everything. Turns out that is true. ;) :rofl:

Anyone else have Encyclopedias in their homes?
Click to expand...

We had Colliers. And would get an annual update to the set. The updates were called "yearbook". which would include all the new stuff, which is not in our edition.
Also National Geographic, dating back to #1, THAT took up a lot of space in the house.:yikes:
 
We never had them, but I do remember the door to door salesman who kept persisting. There were three of us kids, my mom thought it would be a good idea, but my step dad, who worked at the corner butcher shop, said we could not afford such a luxury. The salesman of course told my mom that we could not afford to go without them. We never did get a set, but just about all the neighbors who had kids did. So us three would just go over to the neighbors house and use theirs.

This was in the early 1950s, nobody in our neighborhood even had a television set yet. Nobody locked their doors either, us kids just walked in and out of each others homes. Our school was fourteen blocks from my house, nobody drove their kids to school in those days, we all walked, K-12. Hundreds of kids converging from all directions every morning, the opposite every night.

There was a horrific car wreck right in front of my sister when she was walking home one afternoon. A human head rolled right in front of her. She was royally freaked out by it. They didn't have councilors or anything like it in those days. She was simply told to pull herself together. It took a while, but eventually she did, or at least in seemed so to me. I was the youngest.

John
 
We had a World Book encyclopedia from 1989 or so which was in my bedroom growing up, and I used them for many school projects. I remember the article on the human body had layers of transparent pages that superimposed the different systems on eachother. Another article that stands out in my mind still is the one on Saudi Arabia. I remember the first picture being of huge bright orange sand dunes, and I thought the whole country looked like that. They are still in good shape at my parents house. They came with an index book, and a 2 volume dictionary.
 
Definitely a hugely important part of our youth (if'n you were a yout, before the internet). Youngsters may have to wiki 'EB' to even know of which we speak!
 
PS. I find it ridiculous that the kindle price is more than the paperback + shipping.
 
Jay Honeck said:
The printed page is a thing of the past, and libraries are soon to follow.
Click to expand...

Use library funding and the money/time used for Dewey Decimal Training to hold, "Internet Searching and Critical Thinking Classes"

How long before the internet is deemed a "utility" anyhow ? ;)
 
I remember the ads..."Huh, I always wondered where my mandibula (sp?) was"
Come to think of it, does the Dewey Decimal System still exist? I would bet youngin's watching an old movie like "Ghostbusters" would want to know what all those cards were flying out of the computer desk. :lol:
 
We had a set when I was a kid - early 70's edition, IIRC. We also got the annual "World Book". I spent a lot of time flipping those pages as a kid. At one point I think I had all the flags of the world memorized.

My mom claims to have read it from cover to cover.

Jeff
 
I decided to get rid of the late 80's edition of the Britannica and the Great Books last year (just taking up too much space). I put it on Craigs List and it was gone in hours.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
We had a set when I was a kid - early 70's edition, IIRC. We also got the annual "World Book". I spent a lot of time flipping those pages as a kid. At one point I think I had all the flags of the world memorized.

My mom claims to have read it from cover to cover.

Jeff
Click to expand...

Yep, your mom is right, you and I now everything. ;)
 
bluerooster said:
We had Colliers. And would get an annual update to the set. The updates were called "yearbook". which would include all the new stuff, which is not in our edition.
Also National Geographic, dating back to #1, THAT took up a lot of space in the house.:yikes:
Click to expand...

We had the Encyclopedia Britannica Junior when I was growing up. Wood case, atlas sticking out of the top. Teachers really hated it when you quoted too much from it. :D

I've got the all the National Geographic magazines up through 2010 at home. They fit on a series of DVDs in a small box. Don't take any significant space at all. :D
 
Ghery said:
We had the Encyclopedia Britannica Junior when I was growing up. Wood case, atlas sticking out of the top. Teachers really hated it when you quoted too much from it. :D

I've got the all the National Geographic magazines up through 2010 at home. They fit on a series of DVDs in a small box. Don't take any significant space at all. :D
Click to expand...

Get 'em on hard copy! You'll needa library. ;)
 
jhausch said:
<SNIP>
How long before the internet is deemed a "utility" anyhow ? ;)
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And since it will be delivered by private companies, no more free speech! Pretty much the same way TV station or Cable channel doesn't have to carry dissenting views. (sorry- I know "cable channel" is the wrong term- what do you properly call CNN, FOX News, etc?)

If the government runs the internet again, they'll limit what you can see in the interests of safety.
 
My Mom, a career teacher, bought a new Compton's Encyclopedia in 1957, with the wood rack. They had "Compton's Yearbook" supplements available as updates at extra cost. Mom got the 1958 one, because the original volumes were pre-Sputnik, and the space race had begun!
 
Cap'n Jack said:
And since it will be delivered by private companies, no more free speech! Pretty much the same way TV station or Cable channel doesn't have to carry dissenting views. (sorry- I know "cable channel" is the wrong term- what do you properly call CNN, FOX News, etc?)

If the government runs the internet again, they'll limit what you can see in the interests of safety.
Click to expand...

Who delivers it now?

(side comment - I thought Fox was an over the air broadcaster in most markets. I am referring to the main Fox channel)
 
Everskyward said:
Unfortunately I do. Now that I am serious about downsizing what can I do with them besides putting a couple volumes in the trash each week?
Click to expand...

I wonder if the paper is recycleable? :dunno: I doubt it.

Try putting them on Craig's List. They are destined to be a collectors item. :D
 
Geico266 said:
Encyclopedia Britannica has decided to stop printing and selling the book sets. For the past 244 years they have been selling books for the home, but the internet has stopped that.

My mom bought a set and we used them for studies. I can remember tfhinking if I read he entire set I would know everything. Turns out that is true. ;) :rofl:

Anyone else have Encyclopedias in their homes?
Click to expand...


Oh yeah, we had Britannica from 67 and then a later set when they reformatted. We had lots of books....

Now I have an iPad with a 'Bookshelf' app next to my Encyclopedia Britannica free app which they hope to make $2 a month off.
 
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Don't throw them away! Seal them up and put them in a time capsule somewhere. They'll be a hoot in 2080...if anyone can still read.
 
jhausch said:
Who delivers it now?

(side comment - I thought Fox was an over the air broadcaster in most markets. I am referring to the main Fox channel)
Click to expand...
Private companies that have tried to limit what could be carried over internet channels due to "bandwidth limitations" There are laws against that ( http://www.fcc.gov/topic/open-internet ). There have been some attempts by some of the broad band carriers to change this (summary here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality ).

As for Fox, there are several Fox outlets. There are the local TV channels, Fox News (AFAIK, only a cable outlet), and the movie distributor. I was referring to the cable outlet.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Private companies that have tried to limit what could be carried over internet channels due to "bandwidth limitations" There are laws against that ( http://www.fcc.gov/topic/open-internet ). There have been some attempts by some of the broad band carriers to change this (summary here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality ).

As for Fox, there are several Fox outlets. There are the local TV channels, Fox News (AFAIK, only a cable outlet), and the movie distributor. I was referring to the cable outlet.
Click to expand...


Hell, Rupert Murdoch, the man that sets the propaganda tone at FOX has way more than that lol.
 
In the days that encyclopedia salesmen visited homes, they said that the "D" volume of WorldBook was a favorite to show kids, because of the dogs article.

However, my favorite as a child was the "A" volume, for airplanes. I spent a lot of time studying that article.
 
Even better than the encyclopedia was the Time/Life series of books. We had science and nature. Had my first introduction to the concepts of relativity and matter through them.
They really were a cool introduction to the world for a ten year old kid.
 
We had two sets; a children's oriented and a young adult oriented. I don't recall whose they were. I think maybe the children's version might have been Time's or Reader's Digest.
I wrote many reports based on the (mis)-information in them.
The problem with the internet is you can find 1/2 a million references to any given topic. Many are dated; lots of them are down right wrong.
 
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