Ken Park

This is a perfectly competent example of a reference document that will be downright amusing to people soon if it is not already so: data in a format that can't be updated, is hard to navigate, hard to manipulate, and difficult to excerpt from...

I LOVE books, but we have better forms for storing data that don't just create a market for selling slightly updated versions annually. Ben Franklin would certainly have moved to the web for this sort of information by now.

I keep old almanacs around as a reference for previous information. I buy an almanac ever four or five years. These days, with internet information being so accessible, I doubt I'll ever buy a current almanac again. And used ones go SO cheaply. As a child, I devoured the almanac, reading about disasters, mountain heights, river lengths, most populous cities, etc. Though I no longer just read an almanac, they still fascinate me. There's something in the neat tabular presentation of data that show more implies that all knowledge could be captured, tamed and presented rationally. show less

One of many almanacs owned over the years, sometimes useful but before the net handy to have on a shelf. This was also one of a small collection used at least partly as a reference for crossword solving.

I hold on this Word Almanac version for sentimental reasons. Under the then 10 listed Army 4-star generals, I know 2 of them personally.