Encyclopedias - what to do with them? - plus some '70s' tidbits

I recently rediscovered our family’s old set of World Book Encyclopaedia, 1973 edition, which I hadn’t looked at for decades. This old set has become a snapshot about life, technology and general knowledge from the viewpoint of the early ‘70s and in a format you don’t see much today: hard-cover books, glossy and high grade paper, quality images and illustrations and articles that were thoroughly edited. It reminds how much things have changed in the last 45 years because these old encyclopedias that were usually bought by parents to help with their children’s education have become time capsules.

Unfortunately, much as it is interesting to read them again, we haven’t got space to store them. You can’t really sell these sets because hardly anyone wants to buy and the few that might won’t pay shipping on a set of 25+ heavy volumes. Charities and schools aren’t interested and the thought of dumping such an appreciated set of books into paper recycling I haven’t yet come to terms with. I don’t know what to do. Assuming I can’t give the set away and they need to be recycled, I could cut interesting illustrations out and try to sell them before dumping the rest but that takes time I don’t have.

I’m sure others here have faced a similar dilemma? What have you done with your old encyclopedias?

Meanwhile, as this is OF, here are some articles from the 1973 edition.

Let’s start with Switzerland, home of Omega watches:

You have added a little over 2 million people to your population in 45 years. Apparently the democratic system then was such that “most women did not have a voice in local matters”. Presumably this has since changed?


Unfortunately Biel/Bienne did not get its own entry in the 1973 WBE but don’t feel hard done by because Geneva only managed a bit over ½ a page. Apparently the Swiss watchmaking industry began in Geneva in the 1500s.


Note the Eterna branded case opening knife.

WBE was an American publication and therefore many of the articles were US-centric. The article about watches only describes the industry in the US. In the US in the early 1970s there were about 150 watch companies employing 27,000 people. Of course the subsequent quartz crisis took a big toll on the industry.




As many of us love Speedmasters, let’s look at Space Travel. This section extended to 44 pages and that was solely about space “travel”. As a young boy I knew the Apollo program was big news and Apollo XI was the human event of the decade, if not the century, so the extent of the coverage is understandable - and interesting to read about now. The article about space travel was critically reviewed by no less than Wernher von Braun. It would be interesting to know how many pages are devoted to space travel in more recent editions of World Book Encyclopaedia. I would say fewer but if anyone has a set, please post the year and number of pages.

If someone is keen on re-living the space program or just wants to read about it in some detail you could look at buying a set of these in your local area for little money just to get hold of these articles in Volume So-Sz. Here are a couple of pages:




Look at some of the technology we take for granted today from the point of view of the early 1970s ….

A radio car phone with rotary dial and lots of buttons - try driving, holding the handset and dialling a number at the same time with this:



A 1970 video phone, well a mock-up, more than likely. They were a few decades early with this technology becoming ubiquitous:



Here’s the 1973 description of computers in the future. The word “network” doesn’t seem to have been used at the time:



So, what did you do with your redundant encyclopedias?

And if anyone is interested in a snapshot about the way something was in the 1960’s to early 1970’s, post your request and I’ll see what WBE says.

We had Encyclopaedia Britannica at one stage and it covered more topics and went into greater detail than World Book but I found the latter more enjoyable to read because EB was just lots of words whereas WBE was rich in photos and diagrams.

Bit of a trip down memory lane.

We had an ivory bound set of Encyclopaedia Britannica complete with bookcase in the early seventies.

The pages were so thin and jammed packed with writing. I loved the coloured anatomy section with the cellophane overlays.

My cousin had the World Book encyclopaedia which was more user friendly as @queriver mentioned. Can't remember whether EB or WB had the separate atlas and dictionary.

Ended up donating it to the local charity organisation a few years ago.

Thanks, you jogged my memory about the cellophane layers illustrating the human anatomy and it is in WBE. (It may be in EB too.) Here they are:



My teenage daughter just saw me taking these photos and expressed surprise about how impressive these pages are. Unfortunately the digital generation just don't get to see these things and I believe the printed page leaves a more lasting impression than digital media would.

I'm actually reading a 2 volume condensed encyclopedia called the Lincoln Library of Essential Information, from 1977. Its fascinating and has wonderful diagrams and tables to summarize lots of history. Its has great political information easily forgotten by subsequent generations. I think it's what old encyclopedias are most useful for...looking into the minds eye of the time.

I'm giving my age away here but I still prefer reading a book than reading a computer screen.

I remember that when I studied history at Uni in the late 1970s, one of the libraries had the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. Massive publication, but very useful!

Wikipedia gets crapped on an awful lot, which I believe is completely unfair. The amount of information there is utterly staggering, and while yes, there are sometimes issues with edits, overall it is well researched and sound information. And many times is so much more information about a particular topic than you could ever imagine was available. I don't think it's hyperbole to state that it is probably the single greatest easily accessible digital compendium of human knowledge in existence. I've given to them too on several occasions, as I really do think the work accomplished by the foundation is important.

As for the topic at hand, I'm old enough that we had both a set of World Book and Britannica in the small library at our grade school, and I had to do research in them for "papers" (as much of a paper as a 5th grader would write anyway). All of us kids preferred using the World Book due to the aforementioned user friendliness. I don't recall what years they were - probably late '70s (this was the late '80s, so not that out of date). That exact body cellophane layover was one I always found fascinating.

I have just been thinking about this. I love the World Book set we got for our kids back in the 80's - the beautiful binding, gold leaf page edges, glossy paper, wonderful smell - all that. Sometimes, for stress relief back then I would just pick a volume and start reading. Now, however, we are starting to downsize and we just can't keep them - what to do? I also can't bring myself to recycle, at least not yet.

Maybe I'll peruse a few more volumes before I decide.

A possible solution would be to donate them to goodwill. Box them up, and drop them off - they will take pretty much anything. Now the reality is that they are likely going to chuck them in the recycler - but it's not the same as doing it yourself. Yeah, it's essentially semantics, but it feels different - maybe they would put them to good use, or try to sell them - you never know.

Hi there, this is amazing! Would we be able to use an image for our kids magazine? It'll be used for teachers guides, and not the magazine itself, and it's all free. It would be great to get a snap of the full page entry for the telephone in the car if you still had it? We're using this as an example of how entries into encyclopedias used to be made. You can find out more about the kids magazine at www.checkpointmagazine.com/checkpoint-kids if you want.
I appreciate this post is a few years old now and you may not be in possession of the book anymore, but thought I'd ask! Thank you.

Hi, sorry I no longer have the set and the only photo of the car phone is what was posted here. From my perspective feel free to use the photos I uploaded for your teachers guide but obviously I'm not speaking for Omega Forums and the publisher of World Book Encyclopaedia.

Thank you so much and I appreciate your response. Thank you again for coming back to me!