A friend of mine has a 1980 set of Encyclopedia Britannica he's trying to get rid of. They're not going to be public domain in many of our lifetimes and the information will be out of date enough to be misleading in many ways - they would not be appropriate for a school.
I see there's another 1980 EB on eBay right now that's had no bids. Nobody Cares (tm).
Your suggestions are welcomed ...
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
A friend of mine has a 1980 set of Encyclopedia Britannica he's trying to get rid of. They're not going to be public domain in many of our lifetimes and the information will be out of date enough to be misleading in many ways - they would not be appropriate for a school.
I see there's another 1980 EB on eBay right now that's had no bids. Nobody Cares (tm).
Your suggestions are welcomed ...
They'd probably be quite useful as reference material. Historically, they show what people thought about various things as of 1980.
On 11/16/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
A friend of mine has a 1980 set of Encyclopedia Britannica he's trying to get rid of. They're not going to be public domain in many of our lifetimes and the information will be out of date enough to be misleading in many ways - they would not be appropriate for a school.
I see there's another 1980 EB on eBay right now that's had no bids. Nobody Cares (tm).
Your suggestions are welcomed ...
While not PD for a long time, he could scan and auto-OCR it for copyvio checks.
And, of course, I would buy it for a reasonable amount of money.
Mathias
On 16/11/06, Mathias Schindler mathias.schindler@gmail.com wrote:
While not PD for a long time, he could scan and auto-OCR it for copyvio checks.
Or someone else could! He's moving house and needs to get the heck rid of these things ASAP ...
And, of course, I would buy it for a reasonable amount of money.
He's in Australia. Shipping would be just a bit, but I'm pretty sure you could have them for postage ;-)
The set on eBay is in the US and is starting at 99c for the set and $95 shipping in the US.
- d.
On Nov 16, 2006, at 3:36 AM, David Gerard wrote:
A friend of mine has a 1980 set of Encyclopedia Britannica he's trying to get rid of. They're not going to be public domain in many of our lifetimes and the information will be out of date enough to be misleading in many ways - they would not be appropriate for a school.
I see there's another 1980 EB on eBay right now that's had no bids. Nobody Cares (tm).
Your suggestions are welcomed ...
They can be given away locally, shipping cost would exceed their value. We have a free box where I live. Or to the land fill. I have a set like that which I keep around, but in two years have only consulted it a few times. I suppose a Wikipedian could use it to fill in some gaps and for fact checking. Postage is about equal to the value of the set, so you should offer it free.
Fred
On 16/11/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
They can be given away locally, shipping cost would exceed their value. We have a free box where I live. Or to the land fill. I have a set like that which I keep around, but in two years have only consulted it a few times. I suppose a Wikipedian could use it to fill in some gaps and for fact checking. Postage is about equal to the value of the set, so you should offer it free.
I think he just wants them the heck out of his house! He's in Melbourne, Australia. Interested parties may drop me a line and I'll put you in touch.
I have bought several books with the intention of using them as Wikipedia source material. Of course, I haven't got around to it at all ...
- d.
I recently discarded a mid-1980s set of Encyclopedia Britannica, because I never look at them anymore. I rang a local craft shop and asked if anyone was into altered books. A staff member came over very promptly and took them away. Those volumes will be treasured in the future, but as nice big leather bound artforms rather than as encyclopedias.
On 11/17/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
On Nov 16, 2006, at 2:38 PM, David Gerard wrote:
I have bought several books with the intention of using them as Wikipedia source material. Of course, I haven't got around to it at all ...
Familiar.
Fred
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On 11/17/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I think he just wants them the heck out of his house! He's in Melbourne, Australia. Interested parties may drop me a line and I'll put you in touch.
I would have them, but I doubt they're much different from my 1970 edition.
Try posting at [[WP:AWNB]].
On 16/11/06, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/17/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I think he just wants them the heck out of his house! He's in Melbourne, Australia. Interested parties may drop me a line and I'll put you in touch.
I would have them, but I doubt they're much different from my 1970 edition.
They're the next edition up - the information will be broadly the same, matters of geography aside, but as of 1974 they went into a new layout - more volumes, and split into the "overview of everything" Micropaedia and the "in-depth" Macropaedia.
Try posting at [[WP:AWNB]].
Excellent suggestion.
On 16/11/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
A friend of mine has a 1980 set of Encyclopedia Britannica he's trying to get rid of. They're not going to be public domain in many of our lifetimes and the information will be out of date enough to be misleading in many ways - they would not be appropriate for a school.
These have been claimed ... by my brother-in-law ;-D
I see there's another 1980 EB on eBay right now that's had no bids. Nobody Cares (tm).
Well, at least one!
There must be sets like this around - old enough to be obsolete and unwanted, almost free with postage. Mathias, you may be able to find such a set from the UK if the US or Australia is too expensive ...
- d.
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...
On 11/20/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 16/11/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
A friend of mine has a 1980 set of Encyclopedia Britannica he's trying to get rid of. They're not going to be public domain in many of our lifetimes and the information will be out of date enough to be misleading in many ways - they would not be appropriate for a school.
These have been claimed ... by my brother-in-law ;-D
I see there's another 1980 EB on eBay right now that's had no bids. Nobody Cares (tm).
Well, at least one!
There must be sets like this around - old enough to be obsolete and unwanted, almost free with postage. Mathias, you may be able to find such a set from the UK if the US or Australia is too expensive ...
- d.
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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
Inspired by this thread, I just bought myself a legitimate copy of the 2004 Encyclopaedia Britannica on CD. For $1 AUD. Woot.
Steve
On 11/16/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
A friend of mine has a 1980 set of Encyclopedia Britannica he's trying to get rid of. They're not going to be public domain in many of our lifetimes and the information will be out of date enough to be misleading in many ways - they would not be appropriate for a school.
I see there's another 1980 EB on eBay right now that's had no bids. Nobody Cares (tm).
Your suggestions are welcomed ...
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 26/11/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Inspired by this thread, I just bought myself a legitimate copy of the 2004 Encyclopaedia Britannica on CD. For $1 AUD. Woot.
:-D
I assume you're going to go through and see what our coverage is *really* like ;-)
- d.
On 11/26/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I assume you're going to go through and see what our coverage is *really* like ;-)
I had in mind something more like offloading cargo from a sinking ship...
Steve
On 26/11/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/26/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I assume you're going to go through and see what our coverage is *really* like ;-)
I had in mind something more like offloading cargo from a sinking ship...
Now, now! EB is a fantastic book, one of the great nonfiction works of Anglophone culture. Their current marketing operation may seem to be spending far too much of its time working on running down Wikipedia rather than e.g. selling a good encyclopedia, but that doesn't lessen the respect Britannica is due.
- d.
On 11/27/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Now, now! EB is a fantastic book, one of the great nonfiction works of Anglophone culture. Their current marketing operation may seem to be spending far too much of its time working on running down Wikipedia rather than e.g. selling a good encyclopedia, but that doesn't lessen the respect Britannica is due.
It's a great encyclopaedia*, that's why I bought it. I just don't think it's a viable product anymore - costs too much to produce, and isn't worth enough money to enough people. Think of the paper version: apart from the cuteness of a wall of encyclopaedia, what's it actually worth to you? Would you ever use it? Could you really be bothered opening it up and manually finding an article without a search function? How about the electronic version: Wikipedia and the rest of the web being free, how much would you spend for one more source?
Steve
* Or so I've heard.
On 11/26/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/27/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Now, now! EB is a fantastic book, one of the great nonfiction works of Anglophone culture. Their current marketing operation may seem to be spending far too much of its time working on running down Wikipedia rather than e.g. selling a good encyclopedia, but that doesn't lessen the respect Britannica is due.
It's a great encyclopaedia*, that's why I bought it. I just don't think it's a viable product anymore - costs too much to produce, and isn't worth enough money to enough people. Think of the paper version: apart from the cuteness of a wall of encyclopaedia, what's it actually worth to you? Would you ever use it? Could you really be bothered opening it up and manually finding an article without a search function? How about the electronic version: Wikipedia and the rest of the web being free, how much would you spend for one more source?
Steve
- Or so I've heard.
A couple years ago I bought an encyclopedia from the thrift store. It cost 25 cents a book, I believe. Anyway, going through it in a random fashion I found that there was quite a lot of information in the book that wasn't in Wikipedia. Wikipedia has grown a lot since then, so I'm not sure how much this has changed.
That said, I fully agree that the general encyclopedia, at least as a non-free-as-in-beer resource, is on its way to obsolescence. Not so much due to Wikipedia, though that's a factor, but really due to the Internet.
Books are still the king when it comes to *most* specialized information. For now...
Anthony
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 11/27/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Now, now! EB is a fantastic book, one of the great nonfiction works of Anglophone culture. Their current marketing operation may seem to be spending far too much of its time working on running down Wikipedia rather than e.g. selling a good encyclopedia, but that doesn't lessen the respect Britannica is due.
It's a great encyclopaedia*, that's why I bought it. I just don't think it's a viable product anymore - costs too much to produce, and isn't worth enough money to enough people. Think of the paper version: apart from the cuteness of a wall of encyclopaedia, what's it actually worth to you? Would you ever use it? Could you really be bothered opening it up and manually finding an article without a search function? How about the electronic version: Wikipedia and the rest of the web being free, how much would you spend for one more source?
With winter coming it should be put against the outside walls of poorly insulated old houses.
Ec
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 11/26/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I assume you're going to go through and see what our coverage is *really* like ;-)
I had in mind something more like offloading cargo from a sinking ship...
A tea party?
Ec
Steve Bennett wrote:
Inspired by this thread, I just bought myself a legitimate copy of the 2004 Encyclopaedia Britannica on CD. For $1 AUD. Woot.
I bought one of those a while back. The most fun part has been comparing articles to their 1911 versions, and seeing how little of the text has changed - a few word/syntax modernizations, plus most articles have had their sources and references entirely deleted(!) . So it's been useful to me mostly as a cross-check against our 1911-based text. But I tell you, if that CD is the best they can do, EB is doomed.
Stan
Stan Shebs wrote:
Steve Bennett wrote:
Inspired by this thread, I just bought myself a legitimate copy of the 2004 Encyclopaedia Britannica on CD. For $1 AUD. Woot.
I bought one of those a while back. The most fun part has been comparing articles to their 1911 versions, and seeing how little of the text has changed - a few word/syntax modernizations, plus most articles have had their sources and references entirely deleted(!) . So it's been useful to me mostly as a cross-check against our 1911-based text. But I tell you, if that CD is the best they can do, EB is doomed.
I can understand why they would delete the references. Showing nothing but pre-1911 references could reduce their credibility. ;-)
Ec
On 11/26/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I can understand why they would delete the references. Showing nothing but pre-1911 references could reduce their credibility. ;-)
Ec
For someone who died in say 1890 I doubt that would be a problem.
geni wrote:
On 11/26/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I can understand why they would delete the references. Showing nothing but pre-1911 references could reduce their credibility. ;-)
Ec
For someone who died in say 1890 I doubt that would be a problem.
But how many of their readers died before 1890? :-)
As for the article subjects, sometimes the juicier events in their lives take longer than 20 years to become public. Here in Canada for example the standard holdback period for a lot of government records is 30 years.
Ec