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Comment by card_zero | Hacker News Reader

Huh. Maybe you studied one of the things encyclopedias tended to concentrate on? They seemed to like particular sorts of facts. Geography. Astronomy. Chemistry, to some extent. That's how I remember it, anyway. If your yen for knowledge was in tune with what the writers thought mattered, you were in luck. Even then, there were space constraints.

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I don't remember their titles (they're at my parents' house), but we have several. Some generic with a few plate drawings. Some illustrated. Some focused on one subject. It was not that you learned something particular, more that you know stuff existed.

I now like the fact that they, as books, are frozen in time. And that their knowledge is well packaged and consistent. Unless you're a researcher, you don't need the latest. And as a child, the clear writings and the great illustrations was key to internalize the knowledge.

Maybe not exactly what you mean with frozen in time but they used to (or maybe still do) publish a new tome every now and then with updated information. I think they are still very useful for children, for example.

I remember them being a big help with History for example. I believe I read most of the encyclopedias I had at home (a couple of them totalling maybe 20 heavy books). Now, when I want to learn about something, say acoustics, I go to the internet, back then I would go to the encyclopedia as a starting point and later to the library for more specific information. That's how it used to be.

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