RIP Encyclopedia Britannica

We had the 1965 edition in my house.

I can tell you anything you want to know about Basutoland or Bechuanaland.

 

What did you pour over them?

 

I spent a good portion of my youth reading through our set of encyclopedias. I can remember how excited I would get every time a new volume arrived.

In fact, I'd much rather read the EB than the New York Times or Wall Street Journal [/crossthread]

 

My old man sprung money to get me a set of EB's, along with a set of the Classics (Freud, Shakespeare, Kant, etc). I held on to those suckers for a long time until '09. I kept a few of the Classic books to re-read.

 

Still have that set. I cherish it. Probably the most influential group of books I've ever had. Though I was really confused when I found out that South Yemen wasn't British anymore.

 

Ha! We lived on a farm. Let's not go there.

 

Thank you for bringing me back to eighth grade. Wow, I haven't thought about this guy in 20-plus years. This was a good example of the power of advertising because as soon as I saw this picture, I immediately recalled the start of the commercial: "Remember me?"

Anyway, I remember having to go to my next door neighbor's house to borrow their encyclopedias when doing the requisite report on whales, the Civil War, etc. Their kids were all grown up, so I think these were from the early 70s ... a good 15 years old by the time I started using them.

 

Funk & Wagnalls.

And it was Publix, not Safeway. At least for my family.

Very sad the print is ending. The market's changing, and that's not always for the better. Youth today really think Wiki is the truth.

 

I always thought those encyclopedias were all overpriced. I would only use them at the library and the level of information they supplied was similar to Wikipedia in that it was a place you could start research but would need more for a legitimate school report.

As I type this, I have a science encyclopedia set which I bought at a garage sale. I think we used it maybe three times. I need to get rid of it to clear some space on my bookshelf. Information moves too fast and changes too rapidly to have an encyclopedia be of much use.

My wife complained when she heard Woolworth closed. I pointed out that she hand't been to Woolworth's for at least five years before it closed.