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.
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.
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?
Yeah, one of the great things about buying used books.
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.
IMDb says he was.
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.
I don’t know what “participation in reading” means. Reading is a solitary activity.
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.
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”.
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?
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.
Written by Head Mouseketeer Jimmie Dodd.
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.
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.)
Nope. No slot. And we didn’t have an atlas IIRC.
Oh, jeez, remember “Ask Jeeves”? I used that much inferior search engine way back when.
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!
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.
AskJeeve’s schtick was that you would pose the search as a question instead of keywords so it was friendlier or something.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Oh, yeh – remember mastering the library card catalogue system? Let’s all drop a nostalgic tear for the Dewey Decimal System.