I'm not one of those people who think technology is taking us on the road to perdition. The internet has positively changed how we do historical research, and I can only imagine what the future holds. Yet, I find these children's reaction to seeing an encyclopedia fascinating.
Best
Rob
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/encycloped...ingertips/
Thanks for sharing this Rob. I couldn't get the CBS News page link to work, but I was able to get the video to work by going to the CBS Sunday Morning YouTube page instead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2g4oXAtIlU
For those of you more interested in reading, here's a near transcript provided by CBS:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/encyclopedi...rning-250/
It's fascinating looking at those elementary/middle schoolers. When I was young in elementary and middle school physical encyclopedias were the quintessential look-it-up starting resource for a school paper. But by the time I graduated high-school, that ceased to be and encyclopedias' demise in a physical form seemed inevitable.
Fascinating - makes me feel somewhat sentimental and old. Such different times. It needed awhile but I do appreciate instant endless up-to-date information available at any time, and that electronic devices save a lot of paper, hence the info (and other) comes also eco-friendly. I still need paper when it comes to study, memorize, or understand complex contents (and then would also print out Wiki...) I loved to thumb through and read the "Brockhaus" (German "Britannica") for pleasure - and the thumbing through is something the internet lacks.
My fellow students now are of the generation of those elementary students and never really experienced those days without internet and computers. (And three TV channels only, all public, serious, and not broadcasting at night...)
My father died at the age of 39 when I was five (June of this year will be the 50th anniversary of his death). A rather disreputable door-to-door salesman convinced my mother that a new set of World Book encyclopedias would be what her four young children needed to become successful. Although the scumbag took advantage of a new widow, the books did put me on the path to knowledge. When I gave the eulogy at Mom's funeral, I mentioned that those encyclopedias launched my love of learning. I said that I often spent several rainy Saturday afternoons (and a few sunny ones) reading through them.
My sister got the books because she wanted to use them as a trade-in for a newer set for her children. When Mom got the encyclopedias, she also got a huge two-volume unabridged dictionary that sits in my office to this day.
Best
Rob
Funk & Wagnall's was my brand of encyclopedia and got me through many a class! When I was growing up in the late-40s and 50s, our elementary school had two sets of encyclopedias, and my high school (grades 7-12) maybe had one more. Needless to say, you could not take them home to do your homework, so a part of each paycheck went to the installment plan to get those valuable books.
The nearest public library was at least twenty miles away. We did have a book mobile (anyone remember those?) that came about every two weeks, but it specialized more in reading for entertainment. And, of course, encyclopedias took up shelf space that could house other books, and there was no study area on the "bus" to sit down and learn from those heavy old books.
At the present time, I am taking an online course for work entitled Generational Diversity -- basically learning to work with the younger generation (in my case, generationS). I am in the Mature category, but also have the same traits as Boomers and also some Xers, who have a strong work ethic, do not mind supervision and feedback, intend to work as long as they are able, and enjoy gaining knowledge from trustworthy sources.
And then we have the Millennials, where 80% or more of their learning has come from a television, a computer, or a Smartphone with little incentive to verify their information, wanting instant gratification and praise (and mainly praise, not correction), and plenty of time for relaxation and entertainment. If they have to work with others as a team, they will and can produce some great outcomes, but they would prefer to work one-on-one with their devices.
Try sitting through a two-hour divisional meeting now-a-days when 25-30 people are paying more attention to their phones and texting than to what the division leaders are trying to say -- and even some of them are texting away! Makes this old work horse want to pick up an encyclopedia and throw it at them...
I'd love to see what my mother paid for the set in 1970. The visual nature of the cover is what strikes me the most. Almost as if to get a young person to look at it, it has to be visually appealing and cinematic regardless of the content. Oh well, as long as it makes them read.
This is what my set looked like.
![[Image: r8rqcm.jpg]](http://i68.tinypic.com/r8rqcm.jpg)
This is how dull I am. I always wondered why it was necessary to make it "C to Ch" and "Ci to Cz." Were there that many words that began with the letter C?
Best
Rob