What’s interesting to me now is how dramatically our standards have changed.
As a kid, my local library’s E. Britannica was fifteen years out of date (although they did have more recent supplements) and this was considered just part of life: research the basic facts, then check supplements for any more recent discoveries, and if you were planning on a report about cosmic microwave background radiation, you were out of luck.
Today, we assume and expect that the facts delivered by our research resources be up to date.
It’s great that we live in an age where this assumption is possible.
Ah, the hypocrisy of working to make life better for our children…then complaining when they make use of the new ways given them instead of embracing the old ways.
Kids today live in a faster world than we did, and they’ve got a perfectly adequate source of information that is faster and(if used right) much more accurate than those old sets of encyclopedias could ever hope to be, so I say chuck 'em without regret.
Unless your classroom has a lot more space than those of my kids’ when they were in 3rd grade, I’d say pitch them. They just take up desperately needed space that would be better allocated to something useful to your pedagogy.
I’m not sure there is a use for you and your class but I could see giving, say, an eighth grade class an assignment where they do a report on something showing the progress / changes of the last 40 years. So, if the only choices are use them or dump them, then I guess I say dump, but I personally would probably ask around a bit before doing so.
If you have the time and shelf space, keep them as a history lesson. If not, dump them. (It may be a fun project for the kids to look up what’s changed since 1982.)
On the other hand, if your classroom has unlimited space, you should definitely keep them. Put them in the historical section, next to the rotary phone (with 1982 phone book), the typewriter (with carbon paper and correction fluid), and the TRS-80 or Apple II (with CRT monitor).
An average modern dairy cow produces over 7 gallons (26 liters) of milk a day. In 1980, the average was about 3 gallons (11 liters). So more than doubled in production.
I voted for ‘ditch them’ even though I’m one of those kids who grew up with a set of encyclopedias in the house (World Book 1960 in my case - hey, it was up to date when I started reading it!) and spent endless hours perusing it, looking up one thing and getting captivated by another article on the same page.
My more nuanced reply would be to ask, “what would you have to remove from your shelves to make room for it?” and answer based on that. But since LHoD said upfront that
it sounds like the answer to that question would be grounds for ditching the encyclopedias anyway.
They’re 35 years old. I graduated from HS in 1972, and anytime from first grade on, we’d have regarded a 1937 set of encyclopedias as way too old to use. It wouldn’t even have anything about WWII! Same with a 1982 set of encyclopedias now. They were from a world where the U.S. was at (cold) war with the USSR; the U.S. had always been at war with the USSR. They probably wouldn’t have anything on climate change either.
Doubt it. These types of encyclopedias tend to be light on anything like that. They just report facts. Sure, you’d learn about older writing styles, but you’re not going to really get opinions and stuff where what you say would be valuable.
If they were the old Childcraft books, I might keep 'em. As is, if you like them, take them home with you. The only real lesson they would be good for would be teaching how to use encyclopedias, and you don’t want to give time to that. And I basically agree with that: it’s not really a useful skill these days.
Going through old books, sure. But encyclopedias? Nah.
In this case, I’d at minimum use them to teach one lesson. Left, you’re in at least your mid-30s, right? If so, you too had a lot of pre-internet school projects.
[ul]
[li]Begin by asking them how they’d look up information on a topic you give them, say trains or dogs or Africa. They will of course say that they’ll look online. [/li]
[li]Next ask them what they would do if there was no internet. They’ll probably give you blank looks in response, barely able to wrap their minds around that, like we did when our grandparents talked about TV not always being a thing. One or two might ask you if they’re supposed to imagine a post-apocalyptic scenario involving WWIII or a zombie outbreak.[/li][li]You respond by explaining that the internet has only really been common place for a little over 20 years, so plenty of grown-ups they know went to school when there wasn’t one. And all of those grown up had to do the same sort of papers with research that they do. Ask them how they think people got information in the olden days. Be pleased when they think of libraries.[/li][li]Hopefully they come up with the idea of looking in books themselves, or you gently lead them there. The most useful books for factual information are encyclopedias. Resist the urge to laugh if they ask if they’re book Wikipedia - instead explain that wiki takes its name from encyclopedias. [/li][li]Introduce the encyclopedias and explain that the topics are grouped alphabetically. Ask them which volume they should look in for the topic you assigned.[/li][li]Once a kid or few has looked up the topic you gave them, talk about how you’d learn more about something related to the topic. For example, if you gave them trains as a topic, ask them how you’d find out more about how the engine worked if it’s not in the article about trains. There are no links, so what do you do? Someone will suggest you look in volume E for engines. Give them E to look at.[/li][li]Conclude the lesson by talking about how often things are updated online vs. how often encyclopedias were printed. Point out that the encyclopedias have years on them because they were updated once a year. In contrast show them a Wikipedia page that has been edited in response to a current event less than a week ago. Talk about how things in articles get out of date, and ask them to imagine what sort of things would have changed since 1981 and what kinds of things wouldn’t. If they don’t think of them on their own, ask them about things like dogs who are basically the same as in 1981 and contrast that with a geographical place that has been radically changed and maybe even renamed since then.[/li][/ul]
After that I’d keep or ditch them based on how much interest they attract. If they get looked at with interest, keep 'em around if you’d got a bookcase for them. If they only attract dust, ditch 'em.
Encyclopedias are historical records created in a specific time period. The set in question was created before the fall of the Berlin Wall and provides a window to that time period leading up to it.
There are many historic documents that would be lost in a 3rd grade classroom setting. If that’s the case then the question should be where to send the books.
I’m a librarian, and I would not want a 1982 World Book encyclopedia dumped on my library. I suspect that most other librarians would feel the same.
It doesn’t hurt to ask if a library might want them, but don’t just “give” them to the library without asking. It’s not really much of a gift to us to make our staff toss a bunch of heavy books into the recycling, which is likely to be the fate of an '80s encyclopedia.
Is this supposed to be a “gotcha”? An old set of encyclopedias would be of no use to my library.
If someone made me the offer then I’d refer them to Special Collections (housed at one of the other libraries in our system) just to be safe, but while this is outside my area of specialization I wouldn’t expect Special Collections to jump at the chance either. Many books from that era are not especially rare or valuable. So again, always ask before dumping your old books on a library.
I like elfkin’s idea the best. I’m a sucker for old encyclopaedias and almanacs because I know they’re out of date and I love understanding how people in the past saw their world.
For eight-year-olds though, I think their primary purpose would be “To Look Cool” (because leatherbound books do look cool), but I love the idea of “how do you think your parents or grandparents looked stuff up?”
For what it’s worth, as an eight-year-old in NZ, I loved flicking through the encyclopaedias in the school library and finding out about random stuff. Dinosaurs! Jet engines! The seven wonders of the ancient world! The World of Tomorrow!
That’s certainly an interesting perspective on historic preservation. I often use atlases, periodicals, and newspapers from 100 years ago. If those had been discarded 75 years ago because they weren’t considered rare or valuable then it would be a great loss.
Lots of good replies above. I say, let each kid take a volume home for bathroom reading or art projects, while warning them that some info will be out of date.
I was very fond of encyclopedias and digests at that age. My mom had one that she had gotten at the grocery store, one volume per week, and I read/skimmed the whole thing several times over between 2nd-4th grade.
Anything that wasn’t considered rare or valuable was discarded years ago. Historic preservation isn’t hoarding.
Historic preservation is not the mission of all libraries either, and many do not have the resources or expertise to deal with special materials. It is not doing a library (or posterity) a favor to dump an old set of encyclopedias on them without asking first.
