Encyclopaedia Britannica

[issybird]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't know how much a pristine set would sell for, but it's a very common edition and you can certainly pick one up in a reasonable condition in the UK for around £30 or so ($50). I just don't think many people are interested in these things any more, which is a real shame. eBay has innumerable copies selling for peanuts.

Back when I used to check on the price, it was dearer than that; perhaps it was always pricier here. I know there was demand for it. I can believe it's cheaper now, though; as you say, the interest in a century-old encyclopedia (no matter how literary) is likely to be limited as I agree that no one's interested any more.

[badgoodDeb]

I shouldn't have looked; I'm not interested! Really I'm not! They ranged up to several thousands of dollars! But there is a very nice set of 1990 ones for $150, in Pittsburgh. Auction expires in two days more. Free shipping even, if anybody wants to jump on it!.

Spoiler:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321603218257

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

I shouldn't have looked; I'm not interested! Really I'm not! They ranged up to several thousands of dollars! But there is a very nice set of 1990 ones for $150, in Pittsburgh. Auction expires in two days more. Free shipping even, if anybody wants to jump on it!.

Spoiler:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321603218257

The version that goes for silly money is the final 2010 print edition (it went purely online after that). I think people regard it as an investment, rather than a book, and the cheapest I've seen it for is £4000 (over $6000). The version I've bought for $80 is a "very good" condition 1998 printing.

I've no idea what the 2010 edition would have cost when it was originally sold. Anyone know?

EDIT: to answer my own question, it cost £899, or $1395, so some pretty flagrant profiteering there! I think I'll stick with my $80 version .

Going to pick mine up tomorrow morning, so I've spent this afternoon clearing out some shelf-space for it.

[Lynx-lynx]

Whilst I can accept collecting the EB, I'm wondering about reading the '98 edition, because it seems to me that I'd be trying to work out if the information was still current .....

And yes there are no doubt plenty of exceptions to the currency rule like the number of bones in the body of a human or animal etc but there are other things that could change and I wouldn't know it of my own volition (which is why I'm reading the EB in the first place).

So I'd then probably have to fact check what I'd read in the '98 edition with either the latest edition of EB or something else.

[pdurrant]

My parents had (still have) a set from the early 1900s.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

My parents had (still have) a set from the early 1900s.

The 1911 edition is the gold standard; that's the one I'd like.

[FizzyWater]

Growing up, we had the "World Book Encyclopedia" rather than this one. Don't know whatever happened to that....as the only "reader" in the house (after my folks split up), I suspect my mother threw it away. *shudder*

[badgoodDeb]

Maybe it went to Goodwill or somewhere, at least. Or to a cousin or something.

[HarryT]

Picked up my EB today. A 560 mile round trip, so quite a long drive, but well worth it. It's now filling two shelves of one of the bookcases I emptied by replacing most of my paperbacks with ebooks.

Point well taken about "how useful is a 1998 encyclopaedia", but my main interest is history, which really doesn't change that much. Looked up a few of the subjects I've been researching recently for my Egyptology course and they're very informative.

Why the EB rather than Wiki? Two main answers:

1. It's more authoritative (which isn't necessarily to say more accurate, but I can reference EB in an essay; I can't reference Wiki).

2. It's hugely better as a research tool, because the information is better organised. The EB has a volume called the "Propaedia", which is a hierarchical categorisation of all human knowledge. This allows you to "drill down" and find out what areas it would be useful to research to learn about whatever it is you want to know about. As well as the Propaedia there is a 2-volume index which allows you to find all references to a topic, and a decent index such as this is far more than a simple word search.

Anyway, for £50 I reckon I've got a bargain. The contents of the books are in perfect condition. The bindings are in good shape too, with only a few dinged corners where books have been dropped.

Very happy!

BTW: just won an auction for an 11th/12th edition in reasonable condition for £30 - this time it's local, so I'm going to pick it up tomorrow. The 11th edition is the classic 1910 version; the 12th edition is 3 additional volumes added to the 11th ed in 1920; two covering the "Great War", and a third with miscellaneous changes added between 1910 and 1920.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by HarryT

BTW: just won an auction for an 11th/12th edition in reasonable condition for £30 - this time it's local, so I'm going to pick it up tomorrow. The 11th edition is the classic 1910 version; the 12th edition is 3 additional volumes added to the 11th ed in 1920; two covering the "Great War", and a third with miscellaneous changes added between 1910 and 1920.

Very nice! Looking forward to seeing what you think of it.

[badgoodDeb]

And at least, if you ever get totally dissatisfied with it, you can burn it for heat

You know, at the y3K crisis or something.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Picked up my EB today. A 560 mile round trip, so quite a long drive, but well worth it.
.... It's hugely better as a research tool, because the information is better organised. The EB has a volume called the "Propaedia", which is a hierarchical categorisation of all human knowledge. This allows you to "drill down" and find out what areas it would be useful to research to learn about whatever it is you want to know about. As well as the Propaedia there is a 2-volume index which allows you to find all references to a topic, and a decent index such as this is far more than a simple word search.

Harry I'm pleased it worked out well for you!

Two disparate thoughts: how long did it take for your return journey? That's a 900 or so klm journey, which is about the distance from Sydney to Brisbane by car. That trip takes about 11 hours (depending on the route), and adding extra time for more/longer refresher stops. But in England I'm curious how long that distance takes.

And the second thought: the Propaedia sounds like an excellent tool, and I'm thinking would be extremely useful when using the internet as a research tool. Anyone know if there is a propaedia for internet sourcing/research?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Two disparate thoughts: how long did it take for your return journey? That's a 900 or so klm journey, which is about the distance from Sydney to Brisbane by car. That trip takes about 11 hours (depending on the route), and adding extra time for more/longer refresher stops. But in England I'm curious how long that distance takes.

Set off from home at 7am; got home shortly after 5pm, so a little over 10h, of which probably 9h was driving. Mostly motorway, so decent roads, and quiet with it being a Saturday. So pretty similar to your time.

I always enjoy long car journeys; they're the perfect opportunity to catch up on the recorded radio drama I have on my iPhone, for which I have an interface to play it through the car's speakers. Today it was "Rumpole of the Bailey" and a very good dramatised reading of "Paradise Lost".

[crich70]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

And at least, if you ever get totally dissatisfied with it, you can burn it for heat

You know, at the y3K crisis or something.

If any of us are still around when the y3k crisis is due we'll probably have other things on our minds besides how useful paper is as a combustible material.

[HarryT]

Having now got the 11th/12th edition, it's interesting to compare it to the modern 15th edition.

Size-wise, the two are pretty similar: both consist of 32 volumes, and occup the same amount (roughly 6 feet) of shelf-space.

Content-wise, though, they are very different.

The 11th edition is what I suppose we all think of a traditional encyclopaedia: it's arranged alphabetically and, although there's an index and cross-references, you really need to know what you're looking for.

The 15th edition is much more of a research tool, and is in 3 parts: a 1-volume "Propaedia", which breaks down all human knowledge in a series of hierarchical classifications. Then there's the 17-volume "Macropaedia", which is an alphabetical listing of long, in-depth, articles (eg the article on "United States of America" is 310 pages long); Macropaedia articles tend to be "overviews" of a whole area of knowledge. Finally there's the 12-volume "Micropaedia", which is an alphabetical list of much shorter articles about specific people, places, things, etc. You can use it either "top-down" or "bottom-up": eg if you wanted to learn about American History, you could first look in the "Propaedia", and you'd find Part 9, "The History of Mankind". Look through its contents and you'll find Division 6, "The modern World to 1920" and Division 7, "The World Since 1920". Within Division 6 we have topic 964, "European Colonies in the Americas from 1492 to 1790", and 965, "Development of the United States and Canada from 1763 to 1920. Turn to topic 965 and you get a hierarchical listing of American history with top-levels of "The United States to 1865" and "The United States from 1865 to 1920", within the first of these divisions you have "Establishment and Consolidation of the United States", and so on, about 4 levels deep. Finally, you have a listing of Macropaedia and Micropaedia articles which cover each subdivision. So it's a great way to do structured research, and you really can't do the same with Wikipedia.

Which of the two is better? For research, unquestionably the 15th edition. But for general reading, the 11th often has much longer and more detailed articles. Eg, to pick one random example from the first few pages of each, the 11th edition has a 12-page article on "Abbeys", whereas the 15th has a third of one page!