Talk:World Book Encyclopedia

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Most schools have a copy of the World Book encyclopedia.

I took the above line out because I would like to see something backing up the statement. Is it referring to most schools in the world? Or most schools in North America or Europe? The extensive list of sales reps around the world [1] suggests it is widespread as well as high-selling, but I think the statement needs either factual backup or qualifying. Hope someone can help. -- Sam

I don't think most British schools have one. We're more likely to have Britannica. Secretlondon 21:18, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] 1924 edition of world book

I have a set of the world book and on the front page it clearly says 1924. wikipedia says none were made during that year and I'm wondering if its from '23 or '25 then. Any input would be great

My 1965 edititon was printed in 1964. Perhaps that is the reason. Bubba73 (talk), 00:20, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CD included with Apple computers

If I'm not mistaken, Apple includes World Book with all consumer computers, not just iBooks. --Bryan Nguyen | Talk 05:18, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Sadly, Apple seems to have discontinued, or at the very least, muted this practice — World Book 2006 is not currently shipping with the Dual Core iMac. This may be due to Rosetta incompatibilities, but such a reason seems unlikely since Software MacKiev has already released the appropriate Universal Binary Updates. Regardless, we should probably qualify the remarks in the article with a "virtually all" or "until recently". ~ Ross (ElCharismo) 15:34, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] up-to-date nature

I wrote in the article that World Book Encyclopedia is the most up-to-date encyclopedia one can buy. This can be verified by clicking on the link accompanying the statement and scrolling down to the section of the page titled "Features".

Reverting change,

Primetime 07:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Patently, wikipedia is the most up-to-date encyclopedia, smashing World Book's piddly 20% article revisions a year with hundreds of changes every hour. Though, I guess they have fewer vandalism issues... at least not until the volumes make it into schools. --zippedmartin 02:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Wikpedia gets edited every minute and is automatically fact checked by experts to ensure accuracy and lack of POV, right?? Right??? WRONG!!!! It's full of armchair 'experts' and vandals. No wonder no respectable institution of learning will accept it as a legitimate source. Gawd, you're a twit... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.69.81.2 (talk) 14:54, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

It could be true that it's more up to date. I rarely read anything in Wikipedia except to edit it, though, because the factual accuracy is much worse and the style very choppy. If I ever do read anything in Wikipedia, I always double-check it somewhere else. Wikipedia's strength, in my opinion, is that it's the largest encyclopedia available--although I doubt it will ever be used in an academic setting.
--Primetime 03:48, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Sure, but the dispute is over World Book's claim that it "...continues to revise almost 20% [of its pages], making it the most up-to-date encyclopedia you can buy". Even if we trust they've carefully researched the up-to-date-ness of not only US and non-US English language competitors, but also non-English competitors, there's obviously a huge gap between yearly-printing and anyone-can-edit. You could however, let this through currently on the technicality that you can't actually *purchase* en.wikipedia yet, in a formal manner - you *could* pay someone to give you a copy on dvd or whatever, within the terms of the GDFL. As for accuracy, anyone who doesn't double check what *any* source says before citing it somewhere important deserves every bit of pain they get. --zippedmartin 07:04, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Also, (at least at my school), World Book is considered as a professional high-quality source, while Wikipedia is considered at best a site for interesting personal surfing. --- Dralwik|Have a Chat My "Great Project"

[edit] 1959 World Book

I actually have the G volume from the 1959 set. From the front page:

THE WORLD BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIA


In Eighteen Volumes and Reading and Study Guide

AppleMacReporter 01:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary

Through the fifties, sixties and at least the early seventies World Book was published by Field Educational Corporation. This was owned by the family of Marshall Field. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.239.167.214 (talk) 18:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Some references are World Book publicity material

Some of the references for statements such as "it is also the most up-to-date encyclopedia sold, with 20% of its pages revised each year" are sections of the World Book website. These references are patently not independent and as a result they are not suitable for supporting such claims. I've edited the text to make the sources of these claims more clear add added some citation needed flags. Surely there are some recent reviews of World Book which can be cited? --Nick Dowling 10:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Comments by hard-banned user removed.

Being the most up-to-date encyclopædia isn't a policy, it's a claim that needs to be substantiated, and the publisher's claims aren't sufficient for that.

And before you ask yet again, no, I don't know the work; it's pretty well unknown here, so far as I'm aware. Moreover, I don't find much use for general reference works. None of that is relevant; we're talking about the principles of article writing, for which one needs to know nothing about the subject.

At the moment the article is deeply deficient. For example, it starts with a marketing claim, which no article should do, and the whole piece is full of unsubstantiated (and parochial) statements about its significance. I've added an NPoV tag, in the hope that we'll get some more attention from a wider range of editors. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:11, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Predictably, User:67.165.216.16 simply reverted my edits, including the removal of the NPoV template. If he or she continues in this way, it will lead to an editing block. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Anon user was blocked. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 21:40, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Photograph

There has ought to be a photograph of the most recent World Book (print edition) in this article.


I don't know that there ought to be one, but if you want one, you only have to take a photograph and up-load it. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 16:39, 21 April 2007 (UTC)