> how old are you?
I am old enough to remember encyclopedias coming in 25+ big book volumes &the only place to find and read thme was the school library.
No normal family in my country could afford a full encyclopedia due to cost, but some grants or rich folks with good fortune donated such books to our school library. Reading was fun in young days and seeing even many black and white pictures helped in those books take trips into the future or past. Good times & so many memories.
@nixCraft
I was blessed enough to have a full encyclopedia
I read the heck outta that thing
@nixCraft One of my first freelance jobs in the early 2000s was writing articles for a series of (physical) encyclopedias on U.S. history. I've always been meaning to see if any copies still exist in some public school library somewhere.
@nixCraft I鈥檓 old enough when they became more affordable. I judged babysitting jobs based on which ones they had. :)
@nixCraft Someone else in the thread mentioned this, but "encyclopedia salesman" used to be a job up through the 1980s. They would go door-to-door through neighborhoods and look for families with kids. Most people couldn't afford the whole set, but you could buy a volume each month for 2 years. My parents did that. I remember using them for school papers, though I was often frustrated by how sparse and short the entries tended to be, a paragraph where I wanted at least a page or two.
@nixCraft
My were lucky to have The Book of Knowledge in our house. Many hours of reading and wondering.
@nixCraft i remember my folks buying me cheap Funk & Wagnall brand as a callow.
@nixCraft We had a partial set; my parents bought it one volume at a time from a grocery store. I read those suckers cover to cover.
But hanging out at the library after school was epic.
@nixCraft I still remember the days of door-to-door encyclopedia sellers. You had the choice: one book a month or the entire collection in one go.
@nixCraft I鈥檓 old enough to remember them in my school鈥檚 library and had to use them to research and write book reports.
@nixCraft
That's why I always thought that Wikipedia was one of the biggest achievements of the internet.
Free knowledge to everyone.
@nixCraft 0ne of the advantages of a publically funded school system is that libraries would not have to beg millionaires. Even better to anchor that in the constitution.
@nixCraft I remember Wikipedia being the largest worry of teachers...
@nixCraft In Turkey newspaper's were giving out Encyclopedia's to people collecting coupons. I am one of the very fortunate ones that had lots of volumes at home. Good times. It was a blessing to go through pages.
