Dear LPG,

I was taking a look on the internet recently and found evidence that points to the fact that there were an estimated 4.46 billion pages of internet information to be found online in 2018.  I remember thinking that every fact ever was in my living room when I was 11 years old.  How things have changed.

I have never been an avid reader but I want to take you back to the 1960s when as a child I, for one, felt privileged that my siblings and I had been given a copy of the Encyclopaedia Britannica as a Christmas present.  I can’t say that we were straight in there reading it from cover to cover, but there was so much information in it that homework became a bit easier for a while. We thought that we could find everything on those pages.   

I remember the door to door salesman getting his foot through the door and persuading my parents that it was the way to go for the children, and I also remember that it cost so much that it had to be paid for in years of weekly instalments although it looked pretty impressive on the bookshelf; but then came the internet and Britannica announced the final paper edition of their publication in 2010.

I thought I knew everything back then and the convenience of looking in the index before finding the appropriate volume and page seemed so convenient.   I don’t think anyone envisaged the ease with which we can find those same nuggets of information with our laptops, tablets and mobile phones these days (if we have learned to Google).  

Our copy was finally relegated to a set of boxes but this year’s spring clean brought them to the surface again.  Looking at it now shows it to take up much too much space so I thought I would take a look online to see if it was worth selling in the light of all the other antique items that are appreciating in value.  I checked with eBay to see what they are being sold for these days and I have asked LPG to share the link I found which shows that there are sets being offered at relatively disappointing prices but few bids being made.

There is little doubt that the price of knowledge has been devalued quite a bit over the years.

JB, Beckenham

JB’s promised link…

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