Encyclopedias of despair

Best Value critical friend: "Why do you have a copy of the 1997 World Book Encyclopedia when you've also got a copy of the 2004 edition?"

Reference Librarian: "We're very busy, so we have kept a copy of the old edition so that if somebody's already using volume one customers still have something to refer to."

The internet access was down today. The very busy reference library had six customers. None wanted an encyclopedia.