ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
The Encyclopædia Britannica (Latin for “British Encyclopaedia”), published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English language encyclopaedia. In 2012, it was announced that the 2010 edition was the last printed edition that would be published. The Britannica is the oldest English-language encyclopaedia still being produced. It was first published between 1768 and 1771 in Edinburgh, Scotland as three volumes. (More from Wikipedia)
Most encyclopedias have fixed articles with named authors; some, such as Encyclopædia Britannica have a scholarly take, while others are more general-interest. That is not true of Wikipedia: Nearly all of its contributors operate completely anonymously – more than a few are identified only by IP addresses, though most (like me) have “handles” (to borrow a CB radio term).
(August 2012)
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We have been bombarded with important anniversaries this year. Meanwhile, 2012 is making some history of its own. The first major newspaper not to be a “daily”, the New Orleans Times-Picayune is now published only 3 days a week. One of the leading news magazines, Newsweek is ceasing its “print” edition at the end of the year and will be available only online. Encyclopædia Britannica, which dates back to 1768, announced in 2012 that they published their final hardbound edition (32 volumes) in 2010.
As to my own modest anniversary, this past year’s posts have been very long compared to previous years; there always seemed to be a lot to say, though I sense that next year’s will be shorter [boy, was I wrong about that!]. I am trying to get as much as possible of my musical knowledge . . . well, not on paper exactly, but you get the idea.
(Year 3 Review)
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A few months ago, I was at The Book Bag, the great used-book store down here, and the owner asked me if I liked National Geographic, and I said sure. She then offered me to sell me numerous bound volumes for $20 – but only if we took all of them! She also had Time and Newsweek and Life and some U. S. News and World Report and even a couple of volumes from an old set of Encyclopædia Britannica. As I have mentioned before, I am not driving these days; and Shawanna’s husband Earl was steady carrying boxes out to his car on a dolly while I was shopping for books. A couple of times when he took a break, the owner ran back there and said, no, these also; and those over there. (At a later date, she had found another half dozen volumes and gave me those also!)
The magazines are professionally bound, mostly in green, and look like they had come from a public library or university library somewhere. Although there are no library cards or anything like that, some of the individual issues are marked “Gulfport East High School”. The National Geographic volumes date back to the 1940’s and extend to the very end of the 1990’s, including those from the month of my birth (May 1951). I don’t think I have all of the volumes, but I haven’t put them into order yet, so I cannot say for sure.
The magazine volumes cover most of two full bookcases, and I really didn’t know where I could fit them. Then it occurred to me to create a library in the front room off the over-sized living room; we had never really found a use for that room, other than to sit the china cabinets in there, but I had them moved to the side of the dining room off the kitchen (the only large window in the house is in that room). So far, I have three bookshelves in there, including all of the magazines; and I am planning to move the rest of the bookshelves into the library over the next month or so, probably including the paperbacks that are housed in open media cabinets in our bedroom these days.
I have half a mahogany dining room table in the library already that I inherited from Charlie, along with eight chairs; they went through Katrina but came out in pretty decent shape after we had them refinished by a local company. The other half of the table was broken accidentally post-Katrina, so at our big yard sale, we sold that half plus the drop leaf to someone who was restoring an old boat. That half a table I have only ever used as a bar during parties; but I figured that it would work well as an old-fashioned library table like those you see in movies, with four or maybe even six chairs beside it.
Post-Katrina, the bottom shelves of all of my bookshelves have always been used for a row of record albums; otherwise, I would have run out of room for them long ago. The upper shelves are no good for that, but the bottom shelves work out fine. There is one bookshelf left in my office that is also going to the library; pretty much everything else in that room is for the albums and CD’s. Hopefully, one more record rack from Hobby Lobby will cover the rest of the collection, including the 300 or so albums that went through Katrina that I have still not cleaned up.
(Year 10 Review)
