Broom Hilda by Russell Myers for January 24, 2021

Cutting and pasting from Wikipedia isn’t a research paper, Nerwin.

I remember all the times I spent in the public library. Sheesh, that was one heck of a long time ago.

I have a volume of an old ‘konversationslexicon’ (encyclopedia) nr 2 Armenien-Belger from 1920-something at my bedside. I read a few articles every night before sleeping. Sometimes I google something interesting from it, but find nothing. The thing about printed works vs web works is that print cannot be changed. Old encyclopedias and such show us an old world. In Armenien-Belger ‘avantgarde’ is a purely military term.

Freemasons are attracted to the number 322… hmmmmm.

When my students whine about having to have three sources for a speech, I tell them how many weeks I spent in the library researching my master’s thesis. How I had to write notes because I couldn’t afford to make copies. And since they can sit in their house in their pajamas eating snacks (when we weren’t allowed to have even a drink in the library), their whines fall on deaf ears. Of course, they look at me like I’m prehistoric.

That would have been a fun assignment for me.

Nerwin must have a very slow connection if it took him 10 seconds. Just as a test I tried it and got 10 results (including Wikipedia and 3 news items) plus 7 suggestions “related to your search”. In 3 seconds!

Of course, using a printed encyclopedia for a report on the solar system is a bad idea. Scientific consensus (e.g. about what Pluto should be called) has changed since they stopped publishing encyclopedias in printed form.

And given the age of Broomie’s books, you need to make sure it isn’t still listing Ceres, Juno, Pallas and Vesta as planets. :-)

I have an early 1960’s encyclopedia which among things states that humans have 47 chromoses and described Hinduism as “an animalist religion”.

We have a 1971 World Book and a 1903 Book of Knowledge. Both of them are absolutely invaluable to me. When I was a kid, my parents could get me out of their hair for hours by sending me to look up something in the encyclopedia, as I would wander from one thing to another. The BofK was one of the first purchases my great-grandparents made when they arrived in America, so their children would have a good education. Some of the historic events it describes are virtually eye-witnesses.

Besides, if you want to hold something down – or up – a couple of volumes will do the job more effectively than a stack of CDs, and a LOT better than sitting your monitor on the floor!

Those banana company laptops are awesome…

Well they still make pretty door stops.

Great way to get the kid going on his homework.

It’s also easier for the teacher to check for plagiarizing. All they have to do is type in a few of the key paragraphs in your report and do a search.

Wow………..

Nice try, Auntie Broom. When was the last time you cracked that 20+ volume encyclopedia? Technological advances will have their value (though I’m not sure how thorough or trustworthy Nerwin’s online research was)….