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.
Renata
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