My parent's never bought an encyclopedia set, but when my uncle and aunt migrated to abroad, we "inherited" their encyclopedias. Now that you mentioned it, I can't see them exposed in our house anymore. So it's either my dad hid it or gave it away.
Yes, we still have those encyclopedias in the house together with the huge Webster Dictionary. My parents have passed away and we cannot afford to get rid of it for sentimental reason. It brings me back to my childhood memories whenever I see those encyclopedias.
Yes, I remember them being so expensive when I first got them. Somewhere in the ballpark of $800. I have those encylopaedias that really don't go into much detail about their topics, which, for the few years when there was still no wikipedia, they were as useful as magazine articles.
They still it in my parents house and occasionally they are pulled out to read. Neither of my parents use the internet and my mother still prefers to read books. I doubt they will be given away as they are still useful for maps and tables of figures.
I had a set when I was a kid, it was the thing to have at the time. I have read the set I had from A-Z when I bored when I was a kid. I never got one for my kids, I would take them to the library and now we have the internet.
I still have the two sets I got from my mother many years ago. In spite of the Internet etc, I still find it difficult to part with then. Because when we lose power and there is no Internet it will be all I've got to do what I need to.
Like many others, I used to love encyclopedias. I had an excellent set at my grandparents that I loved to use. I still kinda like to go to the library and browse in that section, especially at the specialized encyclopedias. There are still uses for them. For instance, an older encyclopedia published in the 80's can give you the information they had on a subject at that time. That's important if you're writing a "then & now" paper or writing fiction set in that time period. I don't have them anymore but they're worth consulting occasionally still. There just has to be more of a reason with the internet at my fingers as an alternative.
When I was growing up they were all the rage in Botswana too. When I was at uni, I then worked for this company selling them, and wow, they were pricey!! I don't have any in my house and never intend to buy them, I probably wouldn't be able to anyway even if I wanted to due to the cost. I don't think they're as popular, especially given the advent and advancement of modern technology.
My household still has a few of them. I remember them being a big part of my childhood. They used to sit in out bookcase, and I'd go through some of them to find the answer to certain things. Some were more useful than others. I know that these days you can just use the internet. But I still like the feel of a weighty book on my lap at times too.
I do have some. No reason to throw books away (seriously, you never know when it can come in handy, and books don't take up that much space anyway), and no one would probably buy it for any reasonable amount of money anyway, so.. yeah, I got a couple. Mostly single books though, not those long series in volumes.
Bulky general encyclopedias are not the only things consuming space in our shelves. World almanacs, world atlas, nursing books, reviewers, old academic books and English and local language dictionaries have populated our bookshelves for more than a decade now. The reason why no one throws them away even if they're compromising the little space that's left is that our family highly values education. Those resources could benefit future generations if not our own future undertakings. I plan to buy a whole set of Collier's encyclopedia in the near future.
Yes, we have a full set of Compton's Encyclopedia at home. They were indeed very helpful when I was in grade school and Google wasn't there yet. My parents liked investing in books when we were younger and even though we don't use these books now, we still like to display them. I always had a thing for old stuff and the encyclopedias just serve as a reminder of how it was back then when the internet was not used by anyone. I'm just glad to have experienced the real deal back then.
I had a set of encyclopedias in 2007, which is kind of recent, considering how long the internet has been around. They were a gift from my ex father in law to my daughter. We have since donated them. We're definitely a family of webheads and we're always online and looking things up.
