The Encyclopedia Project, or How to Know in the Age of AI | Public Books
It took two weeks for the World Book Encyclopedia to arrive at our doorstep in two thick cardboard boxes. A full, 24 volume set, its spine is decorated with a futuristic spacescape: an inviting swirl of purple, turquoise, and pink that beckons us to ask, open, and learn. “Look it up,” I explain, now means “look through these pages.”
Online searches are banished from the dinner table and school projects alike. Instead, my children can go to the encyclopedia for any question they can think of. And I promise to read them any entry they choose. They are fast learners, soon navigating the obscure alphabetical sorting of knowledge and the index volume, hopping easily from one topic to another. One bleary Saturday morning I find several volumes cracked open on the couch, my eldest nestled among them, who explained, “I’m just looking up Dubai.”
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