Beyond Wikipedia: Reliable, Pocket-Sized Factbooks

Book Discussed: The World Almanac edited by Sarah Janssen (2019)

Also mentioned: Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology edited by T.F. Hoad (2003)

Sometimes it's just faster--and easier--to find a reliable statistic in the current print edition (in this case, 2019) of The World Almanac than it is to click around online. The World Almanac has almost everything. A table on page 355 shows that Earth is some 93 million miles from the Sun. Page 826 details statistics for Russia, including that the life expectancy for Russian males is 65.6, and some 12.4 million people live in Moscow. Shanghai, China is the busiest port in the world, followed by Singapore, as outlined on page 83. How convenient: so much information in a single, paperback book..

Don't get me wrong. We all use computers and electronics. I definitely use Bing searches to gather images for slideshow presentations, and I love my Gmail account. I'm just saying there might be some “Incredible Hulk”-level overhype regarding the informational prowess of an iPhone, and maybe we got a little carried away with simple internet searches that usually just spit back Wikipedia entries and random chat forums. Yes, Siri is getting pretty good at citing Wikipedia, but I don't think that counts as legitimate fact finding. Wikipedia is okay if we want to find the inspiration behind Super Mario, but we probably should get our information elsewhere for the laws of physics (page 289 in the World Almanac, by the way).

Digital search is so fast that we, as a society, have forgotten how to evaluate information. We have become so accustomed to a fast answer that we no longer inquire of the answer's context, its source, or its origin. Ironically, because of the convenience of data transfer, it is very easy for millions to be bamboozled by phony Facebook posts. In this era, misinformation travels as fast as information. Data transfer rates, it appears, have superseded information distillation rates.

For serious data collection, The World Almanac is a better initial search tool than a simple Google search. And The World Almanac is no exception, as there are many lightweight, softcover reference books that provide better first searches. Oxford has great handy reference books--here's looking at you, Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology--that are lightweight, reliable, and don't require a battery charge. Oxford's Very Short Introduction series as a scholarly, convenient, print alternative to Wikipedia. Check them out at your local library or bookstore. There is hardly a topic that has not been covered in one of those handy, slim volumes. Most importantly, these works have something that Wikipedia does not have: an identifiable, human author. Each Very Short Introduction includes an author biography on the reverse flap. The volume on Dinosaurs, for example, was authored by David Norman of the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences. The information in this book comes from a named, established scholar: how countercultural!

The identity of authors and editors is very important, because the provenance of information is just as critical as whether or not the information "is right." In fact, the provenance of information--its context or source--cannot be underestimated. In archaeology, for example, information is accrued from the context of the artifact, not just the artifact itself. A fabulous iron helmet--despite its pristine condition--has no anthropological or historical information if the artifact has no context. Where was the helmet found? Who found it? If we don't know where the iron helmet came from or who found it, we have no idea if it is a one-thousand-year old Viking helmet or if Jimmy made this in his garage last week with spare parts from the shop. Likewise, Wikipedia and Google and Siri may give us something we really want, akin to that iron helmet that looks neat and might be Viking. But we need to ask these digital assistants: "Okay, guys, where did you find this? Why should I believe you?"

Print resources from well-established publishers like Oxford and The World Almanac are fallible because humans created them. However, we know which humans made them, and therein lies the advantage. Professor Laurence A. Marschall of the Department of Physics at Gettysburg College edited the The World Almanac's section on astronomy. Other sources are detailed throughout the book. On page 312, I find out that--according to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service--502 species of animals and 774 species of plants are listed as endangered in the United States as of April 2018. A graph on page 117 shows the ebb and flow of energy consumption in the United States between 1950 to 2017, according to the United States Department of Energy.

Solid print resources from solid publishers provide this critical provenance information. We not only have information, we have a context. With good sources--provided by named authors and editors--we not only have an iron helmet, we know it was found at a site in Sweden that has been radiocarbon dated to the tenth century.

We don't need to Google it. We have better options. Proudly keep a close copy of The World Almanac or the Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. They are remarkably handy.

Updated June 2019

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