After 244 Years, Encyclopædia Britannica Stops the Presses

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Back in 2001 or so I was taking Library Science classes and learning the finer points of old school reference work, using seriously thick tomes to look up simple things like what films Marilyn Monroe was in, then having to switch to different volumes to follow the career of any of her costars, and using entirely different books to look up detail on the films themselves...I was already used to digital card catalog programs and imdb and was rather surprised at how complicated it all was. The second realization is that I was studying a nearly dead science, and that it wouldn't be long before it crumbled away.

It is a shame in many respects, but it's only because of the amazing availability of information, and that's an overwhelmingly positive thing.

Well, sure, if you're only interested in results, but you can't beat the archeological thrill of immersion in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature and various microfiches and microfilms.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Back in 2001 or so I was taking Library Science classes and learning the finer points of old school reference work, using seriously thick tomes to look up simple things like what films Marilyn Monroe was in, then having to switch to different volumes to follow the career of any of her costars, and using entirely different books to look up detail on the films themselves...

That's too bad, when I was in library school ('96-'98) we did learn that stuff, to a degree, but mostly it was all about the wonderful new world of data availability ("compare and contrast this weird new thing called "google" with DIALOG" was a paper I had to write).

As I've said, it was becoming a librarian that made me indifferent to the book. I was just interested in how best to store, structure, and retrieve information.

[lashbear]

Originally Posted by Moonliner

I'll bet you clicked on at least one of those links. Which one was it?

Like you had to ask.....

[BarTopDancer]

My parents still have the Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedias I used to write my elementary school research papers.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Alex

That's too bad, when I was in library school ('96-'98) we did learn that stuff, to a degree, but mostly it was all about the wonderful new world of data availability ("compare and contrast this weird new thing called "google" with DIALOG" was a paper I had to write).

We also got only a cursory lesson in that with one quick research project using the dusty books. They wanted to us to know how they walked uphill in the snow both ways back in the day, and understand the roots for the electronic databases they subscribed to at the time (most of which is being washed away by the free public offerings on the internet today).

My card catalog class was much more intensive. The instructor was an old German librarian who looked like Doc Brown and was absolutely distraught at the loss of the fine art of typing cards. We spent what seemed like an endless amount of time cracking the code of tabbing and spacing and all-caps and parenthesis, only some of which still applied to online cataloging. We used Dewey reference works and created our own subject descriptions even as I was working at a school library and ordering automated processing on all of our book purchases because it was dirt cheap. I know someone has to sit in a cubicle and do the data entry but now that is one person is employed the publisher itself, not even the middle-man school library sales company or any sort of district librarian, never mind the librarians that actually work at the library. Of course special collections and older acquisitions require that kind of know how, but in most scenarios these days the easy-peasy software walks you through it.


My parents still have encyclopedias from my dad's youth, circa 1960. They are good for a fun night of dramatic readings of science entries.

They also have the ones I used for reports, which were bought from a yard sale and are as old as I am. They were still perfectly useful for most (non-science) homework, at least then.

[CoasterMatt]

I can't raise the level of my workbench with a wiki search, though...