I also spent my childhood with Encyclopedia. I was asking my mother to bring me volumes of it from her work and she had to carry as many as 3 heavy books in her handbag instead of bread or sausages.

Since I got my first salary I began buying books but given my nomadic lifestyle it was difficult to arrange big library - I had to leave many books in my relatives houses.

That's why I am fascinated by Wikipedia with easy access from my laptop. Now anybody can look up Wiki and other reference works and find everything from medical science and latest political and economical developments to history of obscure Indian castes or South American tribes.

Diffusion of specialist knowledge or how it was called by Alvin Toffler shift from muscle power to knowledge power return us to the age of enlightened gentlemen who developed science as a hobby. It's not yet clear what kind of effects on XXI century society will be. I only hope that old fashioned concepts like 'nation state' will be weakened.