I want a nice, new set of encyclopedias.
Yes, yes, I know - the Internet is one big encyclopedia. All the big encyclopedias are online. The CIA Factbook is online. A thousand country profiles are online. Heck, countries are online - we can even visit the official website of <gulp> North Korea! Yes, I know, it's all online. But....
While I spent a week in bed not feeling well, I was craving a set of good old-fashioned encyclopedias. You know, those multi-volume sets, (Britannica is 32 volumes for 2006), that you maybe last saw in High School. I know, I know, there I had my laptop right on the bed with me- connected at high-speed to the Internet - and I wanted a set of $1400 encyclopedias.
It's that paper thing again.
You see, no matter how many sites are on the web that tell me everything I could possibly want to know about Ernest Hemingway (for example), nothing beats being able to pull down a nicely bound volume of "GE-HI" to read about PaPa Hemingway. No links to click, no pop-ups, no slow-loading sites hosted on Angelfire or Tripod, no links that go nowhere; just a nice book I could have laid back with and absorbed myself in - without all the flash and flicker - for a good hour or more. And in a few hours if a taste of the life of Virginia Woolf calls my name - it's as easy as "TA-WR." Ahh, I had a craving in a bad way and had no fix. Clicking from site to site or surfing to, er, Wikipedia, just didn't do it for me. I wanted the original thing, a true-blue set of tightly bound encyclopedias. Britannica or World Book - I'm not picky. A set of World Book encyclopedias runs 22-volumes and is a cool $989. Quite a bit less expensive than Britannica, but, truth be known, I'm fond of the World Book graphs, charts, full-color pictures and tiered-for-depth-of-interest articles. But heck, this last week I was craving a set so badly I would have settled for a supermarket set of Funk & Wagnalls. I guess it wasn't the amount of information I was after, per se, it was the experience. I wanted to feel the book in my hands and turn the pages. (The paper thing.) I also wouldn't have had to wonder if some ILoveHemingway.com website was put together on a whim by a 12 year-old who doesn't get out enough.
The world is at my fingertips, right on the keyboard, a click away....but sometimes it just doesn't feel right. (And don't even remind me that, "encyclopedias," are all available in CD-ROM editions.) It's the look on the shelf. The smell as I open a volume. The dark ink on the pages. The well-written entries. The feel of the paper. Surely I'm not the only one who, in 2006, says, "I want a set of encyclopedias." The real thing. The real deal. On my shelf.
This was very good! I just told a friend by IM that Paper Notes In A Digital World is the blog equivalent of a book of literary non-fiction. You do a very good job and are an extremely talented writer. Would you like to come to UMass and help me write my MFA thesis? I struggle. :(
Keep it up!!!! I LOVE IT!
Posted by: Jackie | January 24, 2006 at 01:24 AM
I wonder, does the experience extend to relevancy? I mean, would you feel the same way if you had a set of encyclopedias from, say, 1989 or even 1956? No doubt picking up an old set would be cheaper, especially if you follow the estate sales. After all, it's still paper, but with the added cachet of age and all the physical marks of being well-used.
Anyway, great blog -- it's good to see a fellow paperphiliac. :-)
Posted by: Jenny | January 24, 2006 at 07:58 AM
I miss card catalogues and microfische for the same reasons, I think. The accidental discovering of something that you didn't know you wanted to know; the non-purpose-driven looking. The feeling of great wealth, and great mysteries.
Posted by: k | January 24, 2006 at 11:12 AM
found ya through moleskinrie awhile back and have been reading regularly. you guys are 2 of my fave blogs. i have an encyclopedia set that my brother bought 3 years ago. i like them alot and use them more then i thought i would..sometimes i dont want to mess with the internet.
Posted by: erica | January 25, 2006 at 03:55 PM
My 14 y/o son bought a complete set of EB at our local library's used book sale 2005 for 15$ !!! What I enjoy the most is random discovery. Take a volume out, page through it awhile, and something will pique your curiosity, catch the corner of your eye. This unanticipated discovery is a special thing, a mystical experience of the intellectual kind. I am 50 and I still remember clearly the EB door-to-door salesman. My poor, hardworking parents ponied over some prime dollars to provide me with those special books. I still have them today. I hope we never loose the encyclopedia to the computer age -- there is absolutely room for both!!
Posted by: H.M. | April 10, 2007 at 05:01 AM