[WikiEN-l] (semi-OT) What to do with old but not old enough encyclopedias?

Mon Nov 27 21:46:50 UTC 2006

Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 11/27/06, David Gerard <dgerard at 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