The Encyclopaedia War

Before the internet as we know it, many families owned some sort of encylopaedias as a resource for aiding homework and assignments, and for answering annoying kid questions.

If you lived within walking distance of your local library, you might just use theirs. We didn't have that option. With four children who all gave a crap about school, a set was a necessity.

Our first was the Australian edition of the Golden Book Encyclopedia - slim yellow tomes M+D purchased a volume at a time from either the "paper shop" (newsagency) or Woolworths.

These were fine initially, but as I, the eldest, moved through the grades, information pertaining to what I was studying became too simple to pass muster - if it was present at all.

This led the oldies to buy our second set of encycs, also on a weekly basis and encouraged by the gift of a two-book desk dictionary: the Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia.

We used the heck outta the handsome maroon, ivory, black and gold bricks. However, classroom comparisons showed they weren't up to the standard of World Book, let alone Britannica.

I envied fellow students with those brands, who could get away with hunting down few other references for projects because the entries in their W/B or B. were so comprehensive.

Our third set of encycs - the New Junior Encyclopedia - was offloaded by an aunt who'd bought my cousin (an only child) a better one. World Book? No longer 100% on which.

I say "offloaded" because, upon getting the distinctive magenta tomes home, we discovered to our horror that she'd allowed my indulged cuz to cut loads of pictures out of them!

The upside was that, with the damage already done, my parents let us follow suit. My Year 8 animal/plant science assignments were works of art. I had a real thing for pinking shears :-)

That same auntie once asked my father to buy her son an Apple Macintosh he "needed", even though the best we could afford ourselves was the C64 (1541 drive a year later).

Speaking of computers, after Sister 1 and I had reached university, M+D finally invested in an IBM-compatible PC. I was excited that it came bundled with Microsoft Encarta.

Then I learnt this cool-sounding new resource was based on the bloody Funk & Wagnalls! To be fair, it included both multimedia and interactive content worth exploring...and I did.

Nowadays, there are no physical encyclopaedias in the house. The well-thumbed hardcovers of my youth were recycled, dropped at the "oppie" or sold for peanuts on market stalls.

Wikipedia (and the web in general) has made 'em redundant. The war is over. No more collecting. Or upgrading. Or comparing with chums. I dunno anyone who pays for online encycs.

What a depressing par. Listen, don't think about how we've traded variety and engagement for a monoculture at our fingertips. Think about soft, fluffy kittens with widdle toe beans.