James Hare wrote:
You know what old encyclopedias could be good for? History. Not like history changes while encyclopedias get upgraded (well, there can be some discoveries but for the most part it's constant). However, encyclopedias and other tertiary sources are not valid for formal research...
One can't have that as an absolute rule. It depends on what one is researching, and to what depth. Century old encyclopedic works may be the only easily available source for biographies of now obscure people. The ninth and eleventh editions of the EB included signed articles by a lot of famous prople like Alexander Graham Bell. Are we to dismiss their writing just because it happened to be in an encyclopedia?
(re-sent) Ec