DSC Library Blog

A Eulogy for Vanishing Reference Books - Part 1 - The Encyclopaedia Britannica

When is the last time you looked something up in a print reference book?  If you are under 25, chances are the answer is likely to be never.  That age is a good tipping point since Google began in September 1998, Wikipedia made their first edit in January 2001, and by the time today's 25 year old began kindergarten, access to "information" had become ubiquitous. As a librarian, who's mission for the last three decades has been to help people find answers (or at least better questions), I can state unequivocally that this has been a good thing.  I do not pine for the pre-digital days.  However, when something is gained, something is lost and what has been lost is the world of print reference books.  In this post and several to follow, I would like to bid farewell to some my print companions that made my job easier and more interesting over the years.

Sitting in my office in the library, I can look out at the beginning of my library's reference collection.  Even without my glasses I can identify the gold lettering on black binding of the Encyclopaedia (sic) Britannica.  The Britannica was first published in 1768, back during the Enlightenment, when the idea that you could cram everything worth knowing into a few volumes seemed doable.  So they did it, and continued doing it for the next 242 years.  The set I am looking at now is the 15th edition, printed in 2010*.  It is the last print edition that will ever be published.  Of course, the Britannica continues to exist online, with both a free and paid version and in many ways it is superior to print edition, with continuous updating, advanced search capability, and linking to external sources.  But it is not the same.

Like many parents in the last century, mine purchased a home set of the Britannica.  I can remember how its weight eventually bowed the cheap, particle board shelves that came with the set.  My brother and I used it as the foundation for many a school project. While this practice might have irked our teachers, "don't just copy your report out of the encyclopedia!", the information in the Britannica was solid, objective, and reliable - traits sorely lacking in much of today's online information.  We might not have been stretching our academic muscles to their fullest, but we were absorbing some basic facts that helped us better understand the topic. And this is the real beauty of encyclopedias, both general and subject. They provide the overview, the outline, the key that can help you unlock more complex sources. Yes, the older editions of Britannica can be faulted for their Western-centric viewpoint, but it was one of those shared cultural authorities, like the old network news programs, that pretty much everyone accepted as true and accurate.  You didn't argue with the Britannica...at least until you were in college. 

What has also been lost is the physical act of looking something up in an encyclopedia.  Just pulling one of the heavy, gilt edged volumes off the shelf makes you feel like you are doing something meaningful. It makes learning tangible.  The 15th edition of the Britannica is actually divided into two parts, a Micropaedia for short factual articles (wagon train), and a Macropaedia for more in-depth articles (American Peoples, Native).  One result of this arrangement is that even though each section is alphabetical, you really need to use the index volumes to find anything and understanding how to use an index (controlled vocabulary in the online world) is one of the great unheralded skills of research.  There is also the serendipity factor.  Running your finger down the entries in an index or leafing through a random volume is a treasure hunt. 

Copies of the Britannica can still be purchased online and in used book shops.  You can even download the famous 1911 edition from Gutenberg.org.  I'm sure our library set's days are numbered.  It is already 10 years out of date and even if a newer edition became available, like the card catalog, it is a tool who's time has passed.  But if you are visiting the DSC Library in Daytona or DeLand, you might want to wander over to the Reference Section, find the books with gold lettering on the black binding, pull a volume off the shelf and spend a few minutes paging through it.  You won't be disappointed.   

For more information on the Britannica, check out this article from the online version here. 

* There is "new" half sized set called the Global Edition published in India, but it is not officially sanctioned by Britannica.