I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print, and I regret nothing

Re:I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print, a... by gumby on Friday June 09, 2023 @12:03PM (#36259894)

> 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.

This is a feature not a bug: encyclopedia articles are breadth-first introductions to topics. If you are just mildly curious about something you'll probably get what you need. If you want to know more you'll have a view of the "landscape" and so will probably understand a more specialized book better -- and even be better at finding the right specialized book in the library.

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Re:I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print, a... by deepspace on Friday June 09, 2023 @04:18PM (#36263598)

I agree. We had a similar non-mainstream encyclopedia set (not F&W) when I was growing up. I was a voracious reader and, at some point, read them all back to back.

That did not provide me with in-depth knowledge about anything, but even today I have a wide general knowledge, and I am interested in many subjects, some very obscure, which I credit to that encyclopedia.

More importantly, the encyclopedia gave me an overview of human knowledge and helped me to figure out what I was most interested in. The articles about radio, radar, computers and such always fascinated me and, I think, steered me into a career in engineering.

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Re:I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print, a... by heyoni on Friday June 09, 2023 @05:20PM (#36264318)

I wonder if that’s wikipedias intent with their simple initiative. You can pull up articles by adding simple in the domain to get a less comprehensive article.

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Re:I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print, a... by njharman on Friday June 09, 2023 @05:51PM (#36264666)

Those features are all much better provided by The Internet. Including finding and ordering a specialized physical book if you need.

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