This chapter explores using encyclopedias as reference sources. When I was in fifth grade, the elementary school principal gave our family the 1976 World Book Encyclopedias. I used them for looking up Aristotle and Plato for sixth grade papers. Other times I would just flip through the pages, consuming knowledge on whatever I alighted upon. They were heavy and smelled funny and people wore funny clothes in the pictures. I pressed flowers between the pages. We kept them till about three years ago when I donated them to a thrift store.
I don’t think Wikipedia or e-readers can match the joy of browsing through a physical encyclopedia.
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