Encyclopædia Britannica

Remember Encyclopædia Britannica?

Those days, many many years ago, when I was just a little boy, we actually had door to door salesmen for Encyclopædia Britannica.

These books were not cheap, and they sure took up a lot of space.

My dad a long long time ago, when I was just a little boy, still in blue short pants school uniform, got "persuaded" to buy these books.

The books even came with a free gift .... a nice wooden bookshelf to put the books on. It also came with additional books on how things work.

So, there we had it, 30 volumes of thick cloth stitch bound books, sitting in the study room waiting for me to read and become super smart.

I believe we had the earlier batch of the 15th edition and I checked recently, they are still on the 15th edition.

When I was just a little boy, we did not have Internet, nor computers, well not in Malaysia anyways. We also did not have DVD's or video tapes. In Malaysia, even the television was still black and white until the late 70's. I think we went color in 1980. I remember the PM at that time, Tun Hussein Onn, pressing an button and presto, the television was in color.

Anyway, with this day and age, the age of the information superhighway, the web, information at your finger tips and a culture that prefers to see and hear things rather than read things, I wonder how Encyclopædia Britannica is doing nowadays.

I would love to meet the last person that actually bought the cloth bound copies Encyclopædia Britannica in Malaysia .... know anyone who bought these books in 2008 or 2009?

I still enjoy reading but I cannot imagine reading the Encyclopædia print version. Nowadays, any information you need, you Wiki it. Wikepedia, the online encyclopædia may nto be accurate but then again, neither was the print versions.

As time goes by and as I am getting older, no longer the little boy, I am amazed at how far some technology has got to especially in terms of computers.

I am now waiting for such a leap in technology for space travel cause I would love to beam up to Planet X315-KVT or something like that and get "computer" to fix me a wonderful meal.

But until such a day, I will just keep on blogging, wishing, and hoping and ask my mother/father what will I be ... cause the future is not mine to see.

Take care and be well.