Far more trustworthy than today. For books to be published they had to be reviewed and accepted by a publisher and then they were copy-edited for accuracy and consistency. Not like now where you can write any pile of crap you want (or have an AI generate it) and self-publish it to Amazon or whatever.
I seemed to have no issue back in the day finding what I needed. Just not as easy.
Honestly though, you could never be certain how accurate it was. You could be certain it was probably several years out of date.
My parents got my sisters and I the digital Encyclopedia Britannica and purchased any available updates. Pretty fucking sweet, looking back on it.
Same as the internet then.
Far more trustworthy than today. For books to be published they had to be reviewed and accepted by a publisher and then they were copy-edited for accuracy and consistency. Not like now where you can write any pile of crap you want (or have an AI generate it) and self-publish it to Amazon or whatever.
Yeah, this has nothing to do with the internet. It is just about lazy vs. not lazy. The exact same scenario happens today, despite the internet.