Despite the Internet: The children's encyclopaedia is here to stay
They used to be status symbols of well-off households, but then the internet put an end to encyclopaedias. This makes the renaissance that children's encyclopaedias are currently experiencing all the more astonishing. There are several reasons in favour of these thick books.
Perhaps I have made a big mistake: A few years ago, I packed my 24-volume Brockhaus and the equally comprehensive Kindlers Literatur-Lexikon into boxes and took them down to the cellar. To be honest, I hadn't looked at either book for a while, and I needed the space on the shelf for other books.
From decline to resurrection
If I want to look up something specific, I can find most of the information I need on the internet: fast, up-to-date, worldwide and free of charge. I sometimes suppress the idea that there is a huge difference between knowledge and information, and that it can take longer to verify, in favour of convenience - just like many other people. Even children and young people today use the web as a matter of course and are particularly eager to use Wikipedia when they need to research something for school.
That's why I was all the more astonished by a recent piece of news from the book industry: according to this, sales of conventional children's encyclopaedias have almost doubled since 2016. Over 600,000 copies were sold in Switzerland, Austria and Germany last year. And this in a market where non-fiction books are currently struggling. Has the encyclopaedia not become obsolete after all? Time to think about the significance of reference books.
The thousands of search engine results are not just an imposition for children. The lexicon, on the other hand, is adapted to their level of development.
Long before the internet came into our lives, the classic encyclopaedia stood for education and thus had the character of a status symbol. Owning a multi-volume reference work was part of good manners and was a must in any well-off household. Not only were encyclopaedias of great cultural value, they also cost a small fortune. The purchase often had to be paid off over years.
The 1990s then saw the first major slump in the encyclopaedia market. Back then, software giant Microsoft launched an encyclopaedia on CD-ROM. The annual Encarta offered 50,000 articles and plenty of images, audio material, maps and animations. And all for just under 130 francs. Shortly afterwards, the Internet and search engines appeared on the scene.
The multilingual online encyclopaedia Wikipedia then not only put a swift end to Microsoft's disc encyclopaedia, but also dealt a death blow to the printed encyclopaedia. Editorial teams that had spent decades meticulously struggling over every technical term experienced their abrupt dissolution.
Wikipedia, on the other hand, continues to curate knowledge content to this day with the help of a global and voluntary community - and continues to thrive. With the Klexikon (www.klexikon.zum.de), a children's version of Wikipedia is also available online. So why is the printed children's encyclopaedia experiencing such a strong revival?
Clearer and more reliable: where the encyclopaedia beats the web
Children and young people may be the target group for these reference works, but they are not the buyers. Instead, they usually receive the encyclopaedia as a gift from their parents or grandparents without being asked. Perhaps because they themselves grew up with children's encyclopaedias and want to continue this tradition. But possibly also because this treasure trove of knowledge does away with the hustle and bustle of flickering screens and instead promises retreat and contemplation.
And while Wikipedia and search engines are mainly used when a specific question needs to be answered, a children's encyclopaedia can simply be browsed through. Children and young people either follow their inclinations or their interest in certain topics is aroused by the explorative character.
In addition, they can proceed at their own pace in the general, but also very topic-specific reference works. However, there are other good reasons for buying a children's encyclopaedia.
The truthfulness of the content on the Internet is questionable - in contrast, children's encyclopaedias are a reliable source.
The linguistic style of Wikipedia is too much for many children, and it is not only for young users that the thousands of search engine results are an imposition. A children's encyclopaedia, on the other hand, is adapted to the child's level of development. What's more, these works are clearly structured, comprehensibly written and vivid in their descriptions.
Children's encyclopaedias are written by authors and edited by editorial staff. This is what makes them so solid and profound. In addition, the truthfulness of the content on the Internet is questionable - in contrast, children's encyclopaedias are a reliable source.
The reference works also teach children how to search in an alphabetical context. Even teachers and educators are likely to draw the quite astonishing benefit from the diverse works that education can be fun.
The lexicon as a political instrument
The encyclopaedia even has something to do with our freedom, as a glance at the history books shows. The first general reference work began in France in 1747. One of its main initiators was the writer Denis Diderot, whose critical writings were banned and burnt. He himself ended up in prison as a result. He saw the encyclopaedia as a political instrument and wrote against hypocrisy and superstition.
Denis Diderot (1713 784) on the encyclopaedia
«In fact, an encyclopaedia aims to collect the knowledge scattered on the surface of the earth, to present the general system of this knowledge to the people with whom we live and to hand it down to those who come after us, so that the work of the past centuries will not have been useless for the centuries to come; so that our grandchildren will not only be more educated, but also more virtuous and happier [...].»
He even managed to secure the Geneva scholar Jean-Jacques Rosseau and the French philosopher Voltaire, among others, as authors. However, the road to the 17 volumes of the «Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers» was rocky and hard.
Because education stands for freedom and power, every encyclopaedia is inextricably linked to our civic self-confidence.
This intellectual work was a thorn in the side of the authorities, especially the clergy. It was repeatedly banned and censored. Even the publisher secretly removed unwelcome passages. To this day, this reference work remains one of the most important instruments of the Enlightenment.
Because education stands for freedom and power, every encyclopaedia is inextricably linked to our bourgeois self-confidence - and the cellar seems to me to be the wrong place for that. Maybe I should get the boxes back upstairs.
