Let us remember that for a lot of people a multivolume encyclopaedia is an impossible dream, not, or not only, because of the cost of the volumes, but because of the cost of the wall where the volumes are shelved. Personally, having started my scholarly activity as a medievalist I would like to have at home the 221 volumes of Migne’s Patrologia Latina. This is very expensive, but I could afford it. What I cannot afford is a new apartment in which to store 221 huge books without being obliged to eliminate at least 500 other normal tomes.
Al-Ahram Weekly | Books Supplement | Vegetal and mineral memory: The future of books (via thisway) Will likely give away, or recycle, or compost, my thirty year old set of Encyclopedia Brittanica.