Oh, the encyclopedias in books, my childhood love and betrayed love!
I read encyclopedias as other read comic books, and even read books like statistical yearbooks, table per table
And my sense of betrayal when I learnt that wile I thought I had learned knowledge I instead had in way learned misinformation.
When Sputnik appeared and the space race around 1960, my books had no info later the 1949 and not a word of Russia being in the race. And having read about races and "negroes", probably state of the art when written in 1930-ies, I did not got knowledge that was valid even in the early 1960.
And how they quelled my curiosity. When did the population of New York surpass that of London? All my books could not answer that, only giving sizes for a specific year.
After my love for encyclopedias ended in frustration when I was i my high-teens, I have regained it now with Wikipedia. Here the info is updated, if he topic is controversial you can read of it and that it is. And how easy it is to find answers coming from many different sources.
So the skill of looking up things in written books may have gone down, but the support to satisfy curiosity have grown exponentially.
And is not what it is all about. to proved knowledge to grow curiosity in all mankind?
Anders
Renata St skrev den 2015-07-14 22:22:
Hi.
So I saw this YouTube video yesterday about kids reacting to printed encyclopedia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7aJ3xaDMuM&noredirect=1
It made me sad. And very fearful of the future of Wikipedia.
These kids do not appreciate knowledge and information because they grew up with its abundance. When I was growing up (and I am only 30), printed encyclopedia was the only research tool. These kids will never know the frustration when you tried looking something up in those dusty volumes only to find minimal information ("stub") or, worse yet, nothing on the topic. And the nagging feeling it left you with because your curiosity was not satisfied and you thirsted for more, but there was nothing else! And so when Wikipedia came around it was this wondrous thing where information was seemingly limitless and endless. And it was expanding at dizzying speeds. And you could add more! It was the answer to my childhood fantasy of having the limitless encyclopedia that answered every questions. And it filed my heart with joy and satisfaction not unlike the joy of a child in candy story (yes, I am a geek).
Those kids never deprived of knowledge and information will never know how precious it is. They will not have the same love that is required to edit Wikipedia and write quality articles. And it makes me sad.
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