# Were (are) encyclopedias legit **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 13, 2024, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223 "2024-04-13T05:41:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2024, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/41 "2024-04-13T21:54:10Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > … less expensive and just as useful … My argument is with “just as useful”. Sure, if the utility consists of looking up a specific piece of information. But absolutely not in terms of the kind of ready availability right at home that encourages frequent reading and casual exploration. Parents who bought encyclopedias were well aware that they were available in school and public libraries. They weren’t necessarily anywhere near rich, nor did they consider an encyclopedia a luxury for a coddled child; they considered it an educational priority. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2024, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/42 "2024-04-13T21:59:36Z")
If they’ve got books in the home and spend time reading with their kids and they have enough money that they don’t have to do without something else important then an encyclopedia would still be beneficial. It’s a moot point today of course, a computer with internet access is more important than an encyclopedia. The kids don’t need to go hungry, the family doesn’t need to get kicked out of their home, no one needs to skimp on decent medical care because they wanted a hard copy encyclopedia at home now or in the last century. And tons of families had encyclopedias that their kids never looked at except when writing a report for school. Actual participation in reading is going to be **more useful** than just having an encyclopedia in the house. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2024, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/43 "2024-04-13T22:01:56Z")
> [@InternetLegend](#): > > The Brittanica is housed in its own bookshelf with just enough extra room for a Book of the Year at the end We had the Junior Brittannica and the Great Books in a two-shelf bookcase. My dad did a lot of carpentry when I was a kid, so I thought he might have made it, but if you also had one so maybe it came with the books? > [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Books bearing little gifts are my favorite thing in the world. > I’ve found many treats including some cash money. Yeah, one of the great things about buying used books. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > All you ancients and nobody mentioned Jiminy Cricket spelling out [E-N-C-Y-C-L-O-P-E-D-I-A](https://youtu.be/cy2jWJtO3lE?si=lXDHJ8a3A8nt-oBs) on the Mickey Mouse Club? Yes! That’s how I learned how to spell it as well. Was it still Cliff Edwards when JC was part of the Mickey Mouse Club? Very distinctive voice. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2024, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/44 "2024-04-13T22:07:29Z")
IMDb says he was. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2024, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/45 "2024-04-13T22:30:58Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > And tons of families had encyclopedias that their kids never looked at except when writing a report for school. If the kid has no natural curiosity that’s an entirely different issue. I think most kids do, and it just has to be directed in the right way and given the opportunity to flourish. > [@TriPolar](#): > > Actual participation in reading is going to be **more useful** than just having an encyclopedia in the house. I don’t know what “participation in reading” means. Reading is a solitary activity. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2024, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/46 "2024-04-13T22:53:05Z")
We had a couple at home: a Funk and Wagnalls encyclopedia that was a supermarket promo (First volume at a very low price; the others at regular rates). We also had a second-hand copy of the Encyclopedia Americana, an attempt to mimic Britannica. Our school had a World Book. I read that and the F&W from cover to cover. They were very useful at the time, much like using Wikipedia today. Articles were not in-depth, but the information was accurate and enough for school reports. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2024, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/47 "2024-04-13T22:55:56Z")
We didn’t have one but if we did, I would have read it cover to cover and my sister would have used it for school reports. I’d walk to the library if I needed to use one. I recall reading, but I can’t find a cite, that much of the early Wikipdedia came from the 1911 Britanica which was in the public domain. Of course everything was quickly updated by human editors. It’s amazing how quickly Wikipedia grew into an amazing thing. In the very first days of the Dope, it was very looked down upon to cite it in FQ (then GQ) because “anyone could edit it”. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2024, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/48 "2024-04-13T23:19:02Z")
I had a set of _World Book Encyclopedia_ I would read constantly as a child growing up in the 80s. In fact y older siblings made fun me for I much would read and re-read them. (It was the 1972 edition my parents bought used at a yard sale.) My parents also bought World Book’s sister series-_Childcraft_- at the same time as well. I actually enjoyed it more than the regular encylopedia. Anyone else here remember that? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2024, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/49 "2024-04-13T23:20:42Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > No, they were not a scam, although there may have been some shady knock-offs. > [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > Right after I got married, a DtD salesman came knocking. He had posters, graphs and other whiz bang sales aids. He said if he could use our ‘endorsements’ we would be featured in upcoming sales materials. As such, he was offering us a deep discount if we bought that day. My wife was all over it. I passed. The next day I priced them out, you could by them retail at a substantially cheaper rate than what he was offering. That left a bad taste in my mouth. I did the DtD thing for about a week. _That_ company – “Global”, IIRC – was scammy. They did their recruiting via placing “management trainee” ads in the newspaper and told us new employees that the encyclopedia sales was something new they were trying out. First time working a neighborhood on my own, I came across a family which already had a set and one of the company’s crappy plastic banks – from 20 years prior. I wasn’t about to continue working for a company that _lies_ to its employees, spent the rest of the night sitting in a playground swing set, and didn’t bother showing up for the next outing. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2024, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/50 "2024-04-13T23:42:07Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > All you ancients and nobody mentioned Jiminy Cricket spelling out [E-N-C-Y-C-L-O-P-E-D-I-A](https://youtu.be/cy2jWJtO3lE?si=lXDHJ8a3A8nt-oBs) on the Mickey Mouse Club? I learned how to spell it from him. I still hear the song in my head every time I write out the word. Written by Head Mouseketeer Jimmie Dodd. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2024, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/51 "2024-04-13T23:45:31Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > For both you and @thorny_locust, I referenced libraries when the cost of an encyclopedia is too high for a parent’s economic conditions and pointed out there are less expensive and just as useful ways for parents to provide educational benefits to their children. Less expensive, yes. Just as useful, no. We’ve already explained why not. Obviously if the alternative is going seriously hungry, or living unhoused, then the library will have to do. But that’s not the same as its being just as good. And I don’t know why you think that people who couldn’t afford an encyclopedia had lots of other books in their home; they usually couldn’t afford that either. Yes, they might have half a dozen; but to come anywhere remotely nearing the range of an encyclopedia you’d have to have hundreds. > [@carrps](#): > > We had the Junior Brittannica and the Great Books in a two-shelf bookcase. My dad did a lot of carpentry when I was a kid, so I thought he might have made it, but if you also had one so maybe it came with the books? Does it have a slot in the back for the atlas? At least some of the ones that came with the books did. I’ve got one next to me right now; though the encyclopedia that came with it (both bought used) is elsewhere in the house (as is the older one inherited from my parents.) ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2024, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/52 "2024-04-13T23:55:57Z")
Nope. No slot. And we didn’t have an atlas IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2024, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/53 "2024-04-14T00:01:48Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > the introduction of the first truly effective search engine, Alta Vista, in December, 1995, and more and more information sources coming online. By 1998, with Alta Vista in full swing, the “searchable internet” was becoming recognizable as the internet we have today, and Google was launched later that year. Oh, jeez, remember “Ask Jeeves”? I used that much inferior search engine way back when. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2024, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/54 "2024-04-14T00:13:29Z")
I remember the name, but I don’t think I ever used “Ask Jeeves”. What I do remember were books listing internet websites, similar to telephone yellow pages. They were around for a brief period after the rise of the world wide web but before the advent of effective search engines. What a quaint concept that seems today! ---
**Author:** ![vbob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vbob/32/4439_2.png) [@vbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vbob)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2024, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/55 "2024-04-14T00:16:33Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Reading is a solitary activity. It certainly CAN be, but my parents read to me, until I could read to my kid sister. Now I read to my wife, and let random strangers from Audible read to me. Whenever I’m reading with no other humans involved, there’s at least one cat in my lap. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2024, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/56 "2024-04-14T00:18:45Z")
AskJeeve’s schtick was that you would pose the search as a question instead of keywords so it was friendlier or something. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2024, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/57 "2024-04-14T00:23:01Z")
As others have said, encyclopedias were certainly legit. We had a World Book set, and a Collier’s set, both of which my parents bought, used, when I was 11 or 12 (so, they were already some years out of date). Being a curious kid, I enjoyed reading them, though they were of limited use for school reports – by 7th or 8th grade, our teachers required citations that were _not_ from encyclopedias, undoubtedly in an effort to make us learn how to do proper research at the library. Were the salesmen sometimes sketchy? I have little doubt of that, or that some of them preyed on fears of parents that their children wouldn’t succeed at school. But, that has little to do with the quality of the product. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2024, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/58 "2024-04-14T00:37:30Z")
> [@vbob](#): > > > [@wolfpup](#): > > > > Reading is a solitary activity. > > It certainly CAN be, but my parents read to me, until I could read to my kid sister. Now I read to my wife, and let random strangers from Audible read to me. Of course, but I’m not counting that. I was responding to a comment that sounded like it was describing reading as some sort of team activity. > [@vbob](#): > > Whenever I’m reading with no other humans involved, there’s at least one cat in my lap. To the extent that reading is a comforting activity, and cat in your lap contributes to the coziness, even as a dog person I approve! ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2024, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/59 "2024-04-14T01:08:28Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > AskJeeve’s schtick was that you would pose the search as a question instead of keywords so it was friendlier or something. Right, and it soon became apparent that you could just type in your key words and it would work. Not all that well compared to Google, but better than nothing. I used to keep multiple shelves of reference books for my proofreading but those shelves now are clear of the books and are holding other stuff. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2024, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223/60 "2024-04-14T01:10:17Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > make us learn how to do proper research at the library Oh, yeh – remember mastering the library card catalogue system? Let’s all drop a nostalgic tear for the Dewey Decimal System. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-are-encyclopedias-legit/1000223.md?page=4)