Chess Encyclopedias

I have two chess encyclopedias, the 1992 edition of the Hooper and Whyld "Oxford Companion to Chess" and the 1970 edition of the Patricia Anne Sunnuck "The Encyclopaedia of Chess."  Both books have proven to be useful at one time or another. While similar in nature, the "Oxford Companion" is probably more scholarly and devotes its final pages to "named openings," something hard to find elsewhere at the time of publication.  Sunnuck's "Encyclopaedia," however, gives more player biographies. Both books offer a number of photos, illustrations and game positions, but neither book overwhelms the readers through the quantity or quality of their image selections. 

Below shows their respective covers and inside flaps.

As someone who is constantly delving into one aspect of chess or another, I have to admit that I seldom find a need to consult either book anymore. I generally find more detailed information, and even more quickly, on the internet.  This makes me wonder about the value of such books in today's world.  Books, produced by qualified authors, put out by a reputable publishing house and edited and documented carefully, do have a greater reliability than the internet on the whole. But that doesn't mean internet sources can't be just as reliable to the judicious reader.  The internet has the added advantage of not being set-in-stone as book are and can be edited on the fly or updated as the need arises (à la Wikipedia).  While I wasn't wanting to make this a book vs internet debate, I do think one has to face this choice when considering buying an encyclopedia type book. 

These are reference books and, as such, one often sees references to them. To me that seems to be the one argument to owning them: being able to check out the citation source. 

I could easily be wrong in my evaluation because I'm only going by my personal experience. 

see also:

History and Old Lace

"Chess: A History" —a Short Critique
The History of a Game
295 Pictures

An Averbakh Bookh
Murray the Great

Thanks. I hope it was worthwhile.

That was a really good post, I still find myself going to my library for information I know for a fact is on the internet. For me though, it's more habit and I find a lot of garbage gets in the way of my searches, plus, not everything I need is free ;-/

I grew up in a library and frequented my local one regularly until about 5 years ago. I still used the Intralibrary Loan System, but found myself seldom going to the library otherwise. 

I am going through a phase of reading big historical tomes, like biographies of U.S. presidents, or biographies of other famous people, or a history of England/Britain since Roman times.  I don't even look for things equivalent to these multi-hundred-page works online.  Yes, Wikipedia has a biography of Washington, but it's only a few pages.

But, what about chess?  I don't have have a copy of Sunnucks, but I have Hooper & Whyld.  It is an awesome work of scholarship, and I have consulted it many times, and still do so, but I don't see how, in the future, anyone is going to be motivated to do what Hooper & Whyld did, in the face of Wikipedia.

On the other hand, there's still plenty of room for print works about chess.  Go to the book seller at any big tournament!  For history buffs like ourselves, the interesting table at the U.S. Open book room was the table of McFarland books.  The economics of publishing are being turned upside down by the internet, but this hasn't caught up with McFarland, in fact, there's more of that type of chess history now than there ever used to be.  And, they aren't the only ones.  Just in the last couple of years I have bought books about Smyslov and Lasker.

For many reasons I can't imagine the internet sites supplanting books in general. Ebooks, however, will continue to take a chunk out of the printed audience. While wiki can't compare with biographical works like those of Ellis or Chernow, but it can compare with the OCC with it's short entry on, say, Sonja Graf (which I helped write for wiki, away back when as a way of paying my dues). I'm a reader of those same types of historic tomes but as my eyes, which never were very good, are getting worse, I'm considering investigating talking books. 

Thanks for you thoughts. 

Truth is all those encyclopedias should be on the internet and updated as needed. Also available for intra-library loans.

Good

Absolutely lo

Loved it

I love books. The internet just doesn't give that warm, fuzzy feeling that settling down with a good book gives. The internet is great for getting quick information, often even for more in-depth information. To get the real details sometimes requires a lot of work. Wikipedia is like a Reader's Digest encyclopedia, enough information to inform me but not enough to satisfy my curiousity about some subjects.
I use the Internet Archive (archive.org) mostly for entertainment purposes (I'm currently at episode 212 of the original Lone Ranger radio series). I just did a quick search there for "chess" and was surprised by some of the popular titles I saw there. I wouldn't have thought some of them were public domain yet. I'm certainly going to take another look. I've already seen one title I want to investigate further. (Karpov's Caro-Kann book).

I have gotten a quick summary of books for the blind from my wife, who is totally blind.  She borrows "audiobooks" from the Library for Accessible Media for Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh; these are on flash drive cartridges.  She gets braille books from the Phildelphia branch of the same library (a.k.a. the Free Library of Philadelphia).  She can download books from either of two sources, BARD (National Library Services), or Bookshare.  One can also get large print books from those libraries; they don't help my wife, but depending on what your eye problem is, perhaps they would be useful for you.  I know that learning Braille requires time and effort, and many people who are losing their eyesight in middle or old age don't bother to do that; and young people sometimes neglect Braille because they think they can find anything online; but my wife swears by the importance of Braille.  It's sort of comparable to the print vs. online question.

Are you aware of the LibriVox free audiobook section at the Internet Archive? It has quite a selection. I listened to a number of classics and a few not so classics before I drifted into their Old Time Radio section. https://archive.org/details/librivoxaudio

I'm sorry about your wife's blindness.  I don't think I'm losing my eyesight. My eyes just get tired a lot faster than they used to, so I limit my screen time and reading time. I was thinking audiobook would allow me to extend my more limited reading time.  You mentioned large print books... that's one reason I now prefer ebooks. I can make the font larger if my eyes are tired and things are starting to blur. 
Thanks for your suggestions.

The Internet Archive is becoming quite a resource!

Thanks for the link.

Good work! Very informative! @batgirl