Grand Avenue by Mike Thompson for April 23, 2020

Yes, but reversed.

How did he know they’re called “books”?

Now there are many obsolete search engines since Google. Try to name as many as you can …. I’ll start “Ask Jeeves”

Attempts at encyclopedias and dictionaries often failed in the organization and cross-referencing phase.

The non-digital form of Wikipedia.

Just don’t touch my Funk and Wagnalls.Heh,heh,heh ;) (Poor Artie Johnson impression)

It was like Wikipedia with referenced facts.

My parents had bought a set of encyclopedias when I was growing up. They were very useful, but each year we had to buy an another volume just to keep track of the changes in knowledge in just that year.

That’s the unabridged version.

We had a set of encyclopedias as a kid that our parents collected by buying some minimum amount at the grocery store. I remember us walking out without buying anything many times because they didn’t have a new volume yet. Then we almost missed volume 23 because it sold out. People were up in arms at the service desk. We got a raincheck that we couldn’t cash until 3 weeks after the last volume came out. I’m guessing management regretted ever starting that promotion since it was never repeated.