Old People Question

[RedAngie]

Did your family have a set of encyclopedias for your school research projects and homework? The google of the era.



I don’t remember which brand we had, but it wasn’t World Book or Britanica. Maybe they were Funk & Wagnalls.

We got them at the supermarket. I’m not sure if there were 26 volumes or not. X, Y, and Z were probably combined. Q was with P. I do remember two volumes for S, like Sa-Sm and Sn-Sz.

Each week a different volume would be featured at a cheap price, like 99 cents, while the others were perhaps $3.95.

The set we had were boring and dry, with very few B&W photos and illustrations. I liked World Book at the library which had plenty of photos.

I’m not sure when my parents got rid of them. Probably after I graduated college. I didn’t take them with me when I moved out.

 

[sam_gordon]

I remember ours were blue and I'd randomly pull one of the shelf and glance through it (in addition to using them to research for school).

I don't remember the brand however.

 

[focusondisney]

Yep, we had a set, I’m not sure which manufacturer either. I don’t think my parents got them at the supermarket. I’m thinking it might have been a door to door salesman. They had a small bookcase that was part of the set. I don’t think any of us actually used them tho.

 

[Disneylover99]

Oh yeah. I used to love browsing through them. And they were helpful to me on some projects I did in the 70’s.

I think we had two separate sets. Brittanica rings a bell, but I’m not sure. And ours were from a door to door salesperson.

 

[eticketplease]

I’m not sure what brand but we had a whole set, not just the letter “V”

 

[soccerdad72]

We had them. I think they were Encyclopedia Brittanica, but I could be wrong on that. I was a geeky kid - I used to pull one of the books randomly off the shelf (they were in my room growing up) and sit and read whatever page I opened to.

 

[_19disnA]

I can recall having set of those 'World Book' encyclopedias when growing up and in grade school. Don't recall where/how my parents purchased them. Long before the days of the internet, they were somewhat useful for homework assignments if you didn't want to take a trip to the local library. They also sold annual 'updates' which didn't make a lot of sense to me since you have to look in several places to find the information you needed. As I recall, they stopped buying those annual updates after a few years. We would usually go to the library if any sort of research was needed for some school paper/assignment.

There were large and took up a lot of storage space. I think we tossed them in trash when moving many years ago.

 

[Disneylover99]

Each week a different volume would be featured at a cheap price, like 99 cents, while the others were perhaps $3.95.

The set we had were boring and dry, with very few B&W photos and illustrations. I liked World Book at the library which had plenty of photos.

I do remember a lot of nice glossy photos in ours, but I think my dad paid something like $1500 for the two sets which seemed absolutely crazy at the time.

 

[KPeterso]

We had a set of encyclopedias. I think they were Britannica, but could have been World Book for all I know. I did use them for various projects for school over the years.

 

[neverlandsky]

My one set of grandparents had Britannica. Otherwise, I had to go to the local library often where they had all sets. It was nice when the library went digital to look up subjects and books vs card catalog when I hit college. Even in college there wasn't much information wise on the internet, except for news articles that we could quote for statistical facts when writing essays or research papers.

 

[CynBeth]

We had the World Book Encyclopedia set. Not sure where my family purchased them.

 

[fla4fun]

We had a set of Colliers Encyclopedias and received an update book every year to supplement them for a long time. Once we had a public library located in our area, we didn’t buy any more of the annual updates. I have no idea where my parents bought them, but my mom was an elementary school teacher so perhaps she got them through work. I still have them in a bookcase in the family room.

 

[china mom]

Brittanica, bought as a complete set and even had a two shelf bookcase that came with the, I still have the bookcase. For a while, we would get a annual edition with all the new information for that year but they eventually stopped coming.

Like Soccerdad72, we would just open them and read them just for fun. I don't recall using them for school papers so much but loved reading them for pleasure. I kind of miss that for my kids. On one hand it is an amazing time that all of the world's knowledge is at their fingertips but on the other hand, it is sad that they don't learn just for the sake of learning.

 

[lynxstch]

We had a set, they were Funk & Wagnall's. Used them a lot as a kid. No idea where my mother got them though.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

We had Encyclopedia Britannica, including the annual updates (updates for at least 10-15 years). I believe my parents bought the basic set when we were really little. And they had heavy use. My sister used to just pick one and read it.

 

[Trinity88]

We had the full encyclopedia brittanica set. Pretty sure my parents bought it from a door to door salesman. I remember eating breakfast and randomly reading through them. Also used them for projects.

 

[Babs Johnson]

I don’t remember what brand of encyclopedias we had nor how my parents obtained them.

I was geeky too and liked to pull a random volume off the shelf and browse until I found an interesting entry.

My parents tried to donate our late 1960s set to a library or other charity but nobody wanted such outdated things in the 1980s.

 

[TCRAIG]

We had the World Book Encyclopedia set. Not sure where my family purchased them.

Same here - I think my parents bought them from a World Book salesman who came to the door…

 

[lanejudy]

We had a full set of World Book Encyclopedias, though not the annual updates. We also had a set of a "children's" encyclopedia (multi-volume) but I don't recall which brand; it was more basic.

 

[china mom]

Did anyone else have the Readers Digest Classic Collection

Usually an abridged version of the clasics with three to four separate novels in one book?

I loved reading those and it was great exposure to classic novels for kids wo would otherwise not make it through the unabridged version.