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What to do with encyclopedias?

hjk_rickhjk_rick Member Posts: 36 ✭✭
edited March 2015 in General Discussion
I have two sets of encyclopedias that haven't been used in over ten years. Does anyone have any ideas of what to do with them. I don't want to put them in the trash.

Thanks,
Rick
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Comments

  • allen griggsallen griggs Member Posts: 35,692 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Good question! I remember when I was a kid, I had 5 brothers and sisters, my Mom bought a set of World Book encyclopedia. I spent hundreds of hours, every year, reading the World Book.

    Today, with the internet, I doubt too many encyclopedias are being sold.
    Don't know what anyone would do with a set.
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  • fishkiller41fishkiller41 Member Posts: 50,608
    edited November -1
    No One reads them any more.. I used to read the Colliers (that's what my folks had)and look for typos.Found more than I thought acceptable.
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  • p3skykingp3skyking Member Posts: 23,916 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Save them until after WWIII.
    We'll need them again.
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  • Ditch-RunnerDitch-Runner Member Posts: 25,375 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I am not sure if any one will even accept them as a donation . but you could always ask around , sad to think they may become just recycle material

    Just a sad part of history going away even in there day by the time they were printed a lot of info was out of date .
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  • s.guns.gun Member Posts: 3,245
    edited November -1
    Tried to sell ours cheap....Had to advertise for free...Had one response...
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  • Chief ShawayChief Shaway Member, Moderator Posts: 6,289 ******
    edited November -1
    Only thing I can think of is bullet stop for an inhome gun range. [;)]
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  • Irish 8802Irish 8802 Member Posts: 1,301 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by Chief Shaway
    Only thing I can think of is bullet stop for an inhome gun range. [;)]
    My thoughts exactly[:D][:D]
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  • bpostbpost Member Posts: 32,669 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    They make wonderful home library shelf fillers. Other than that, they have no value.
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  • searcher5searcher5 Member Posts: 13,511 ✭
    edited November -1
    Our library will take most any book for free. Sometimes they sell them at a surplus sale, but that benefits the library, too. Get them out of your house, and the guilt of throwing them away off of you, anyway.

    Dan
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  • lew07lew07 Member Posts: 1,053 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by hjk_rick
    I have two sets of encyclopedias that haven't been used in over ten years. Does anyone have any ideas of what to do with them. I don't want to put them in the trash.

    Thanks,
    Rick


    Ive never needed them.My wife knows everything[:D]
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  • asopasop Member Posts: 9,020 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Good Will??
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  • montanajoemontanajoe Forums Admins, Member, Moderator Posts: 60,240 ******
    edited November -1
    ....try selling them,door to door,,[;)][;)]
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  • CaptplaidCaptplaid Member Posts: 20,298 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Burn baby burn
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  • MBKMBK Member Posts: 2,918 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Well, here is a memory. I used to read them around 1950. There was the complete set, and some supplements maybe 40 pages at a batch that came during the WWII years. Those had a lot of photos, and covered the War.
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  • pwilliepwillie Member Posts: 20,253 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Our new City Hall has a Library bigger Than any other part of the building.....waste of money in my opinion...[:(]
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  • skicatskicat Member Posts: 14,431 ✭
    edited November -1
    Store them in the closet next to the buggy whips and wait for the power to go out.
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  • rongrong Member Posts: 8,459
    edited November -1
    We had a set of Funk and Wagnalls .
    My buddy has a complete set (handed down to him)
    of the Fox Fire books.They are a good read.
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  • dotcom_guy30dotcom_guy30 Member Posts: 2,572 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Put them in a museum
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  • TrinityScrimshawTrinityScrimshaw Member Posts: 9,350 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I have an older set, and I keep them under the bar in the Man Cave.

    I like to look at them from time to time & read the way history was described as it was happening at the time.

    Trinity +++
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  • nordnord Member Posts: 6,106 ✭
    edited November -1
    There was a time not too long ago when the world didn't change all that rapidly. There was also a time in what seems the dim past where the printed word was the currency of education. That world is no more.

    Your encyclopedias, while a reminder of the past, have no useful place in the world of today, except maybe as ornaments or some such. Sort of a shame but they're virtually worthless.
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  • searcher5searcher5 Member Posts: 13,511 ✭
    edited November -1
    Well, I hate to see them destroyed, as I would with most any book that wasn't written by Hilary, al or Barry. Ok, toss Jimmy in there, too. but-if can find nothing useful to do with them, and if you or someone you know are a bit crafty, you could cut them out to make booksafes. Not that you could hide anything of great value, because a single encyclopedia would stand out like a sore thumb.maybe stack them up,glue them together, drill a hole in them, and make a lampstand? there are all sorts of crafty things to do. I still hate to see a book destroyed.

    Dan
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  • Dads3040Dads3040 Member Posts: 13,552 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Goodwill won't even take them. It is sad, because they have a level of information that isn't contained in The Google, or Wikipedia.

    I have a complete set of Encyclopedia Americanas that my Mom found 20 years ago for $10. I also have a complete Time/Life WWII book set.

    This thread just caused me to review my books. It appears I have something north of 100' of bookshelves. Filled with books, and more stored away. Not sure how this happened....
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  • ChrisInTempeChrisInTempe Member Posts: 15,562 ✭
    edited November -1
    In the process of an agonizingly slow relocation of two brothers into my place. Younger being seriously disabled, never ending epileptic seizures kept in check by a drug soup. I was surprised to discover a stack of encyclopedias in his bedroom closet. Don't recall the brand just now, or that he had them in years past.

    I recall them being purchased from a door to door salesman. As a youngster I read them, or rather almost all of them. Began at the first volume, "A", sitting on the floor in our suburban split level ranch house under the big picture window. Made it into volume "V" before our father generated a major move, breakup of the family, loss of everything we owned inside of a year I thought.

    Apparently while losing everything else (due to drink, bankruptcy, philandering) our father kept those encyclopedias. My younger brother has them because they were the only thing our father ever gave him. Posthumously that is, left to him in his will.

    Brother cannot read printed materials anymore, hasn't since his injury. Has to use talking books, of which he has a vast collection after 35 years post AVM Stroke. But he keeps books, and those in particular. The affection for them strikes me as a bit peculiar, but alright, no big deal.

    So I have been lining the walls of this place with full height bookcases. Encircled the living room, the bedroom, one wall of the kitchen. When finished it'll be two dozen floor to ceiling, 9 shelves each, 2.5' wide bookcases.

    If I find space for his encyclopedias, rather than store them in a closet, maybe I'll pick up from volume "V" again.

    Though I think I may also be overdosed on stacking bookshelves for a while, so maybe I'll give that idea some time to percolate.
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  • Smitty500magSmitty500mag Member Posts: 13,623 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Someday ten or twenty thousand years from now a future civilization will be digging though our ruins and the only info that they'll be able to decipher will be in books and pictures that manage to survive. None of our cyber junk will tell our history. They'll probably look at the pieces of computers and CD's they dig up like we look and wonder about the Pyramids and Stonehenge.

    Like someone else said earlier, after the next world war the people that survive will be needing books because there won't be an Internet.
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  • BLKSRT8BLKSRT8 Member Posts: 631 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I have a set just like the ones below. Worthless. But I like the idea of using them for a target. The only drawback would be cleaning up the mess.

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-ENCYCLOPEDIA-BRITANNICA-1973-Leather-Book-Complete-Set-Index-Atlas-/261821731248?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cf5ca91b0
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  • JunkballerJunkballer Member Posts: 9,309 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I donated ours to the local state prison.......they were very thrilled to get them [;)]. If there's one near you call and ask.

    "Never do wrong to make a friend----or to keep one".....Robert E. Lee

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  • 1BigGuy1BigGuy Member Posts: 4,033 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Perhaps your local school library would take them off your hands.
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  • chollagardenschollagardens Member Posts: 4,614 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Save them. They will become a important in the future. The people that are revising our history would like to see all of those books destroyed.
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  • US Military GuyUS Military Guy Member Posts: 3,646 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by Smitty500mag
    Someday ten or twenty thousand years from now a future civilization will be digging though our ruins and the only info that they'll be able to decipher will be in books and pictures that manage to survive. None of our cyber junk will tell our history. They'll probably look at the pieces of computers and CD's they dig up like we look and wonder about the Pyramids and Stonehenge.

    Like someone else said earlier, after the next world war the people that survive will be needing books because there won't be an Internet.






    About 5 years ago our Civil War monument in the City Park lost her shield. I got the phone call, as I was the Park and Rec liason from the City Council.

    DSCF0005_zpsspoax2qe.jpg

    After I located the missing shield (It wasn't that hard to find a 58" tall copper shield laying in the City Park.), I was tasked with the repair. Yes, in our neck of the woods, some City Council folks get all of the fun jobs. The local "metalsmith" told me to bring him the statue and he would repair it.

    "Uh, Steve, it is 62 feet in the air stuck on a stick."

    "Yes, I know. I am not comfortable with heights."

    "Ok, I will bring her over just as soon as I figure out how to get her down."

    IMG_7360_zpsqxsl9rku.jpg

    Anyway, after all of the effort and research needed to accomplish the repair of Lady Liberty, I thought it best to make a time capsule and put it under her feet. I thought about all of the available media types and hoped that this would not have to be done again within the next 70 years, as that was about how long it had been since someone had been up there last time - according to my research.

    My media of choice? Paper, of course. Who knows what we will be using 70 years from now? I do know that you can always read paper - assuming, you know, that someone will be able to actually read 70 years from now.
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  • hillbillehillbille Member Posts: 14,459 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    the real shame is the facts are in them, not like the new "facts" that are being taught in shools now....[V][xx(]


    when they are found in 50 years or so and the facts don't match what is being taught now, they will probubly be looked on as propoganda.
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  • JnRockwallJnRockwall Member Posts: 16,352 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Donate them to a Library
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  • allen griggsallen griggs Member Posts: 35,692 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    BLKSRT8: That is a good one! A set of Encyclopedia Britannica from 1973, leather bound on ebay for $159. Now, that seller is an optimist.
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  • woodshed87woodshed87 Member Posts: 23,478 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Jack Stands For a Corvette[;)]
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  • fideaufideau Member Posts: 11,895 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I probably learned more from our World Books than I did in school.
    I wouldn't trust any such tomes if they were produced today. Not since libturds learned they can lie loudly enough to change history in peoples' minds. Even with all the assets we have today for information, you have to dig harder for truth.
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  • andrewsw16andrewsw16 Member Posts: 10,728 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I inherited a complete set of 1910 Encyclopedia Americana. Beautiful artwork with lithographs protected by a piece of tissue paper. Just out of curiosity, I looked up "Russia". It had a picture of the czar on horseback reviewing his troops. I have kept the complete set simply out of nostalgia. It is fun to read what people thought or believed over a hundred years ago.
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  • MG1890MG1890 Member Posts: 4,460 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Give them to a child too young to realize that they are useless. Better yet, show that child how to look up something they think is cool.
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  • JimmyJackJimmyJack Member Posts: 5,515 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I hang them on a wire in the basement and shoot up to .22 into them. They work great.
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  • Mr. PerfectMr. Perfect Member, Moderator Posts: 66,437 ******
    edited November -1
    I suppose reading them is out of the question?
    Some will die in hot pursuit
    And fiery auto crashes
    Some will die in hot pursuit
    While sifting through my ashes
    Some will fall in love with life
    And drink it from a fountain
    That is pouring like an avalanche
    Coming down the mountain
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  • gearheaddadgearheaddad Member Posts: 15,091 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by andrewsw16
    I inherited a complete set of 1910 Encyclopedia Americana. Beautiful artwork with lithographs protected by a piece of tissue paper. Just out of curiosity, I looked up "Russia". It had a picture of the czar on horseback reviewing his troops. I have kept the complete set simply out of nostalgia. It is fun to read what people thought or believed over a hundred years ago.

    I have my Grandfathers with his name on the cover(same as mine!). Only about 10 books and I think they dated 1916. I'll look when I get home.....
    Very cool to look through.
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