Explaining encyclopedias to a 15 year old

I know, right? I guess these digital-age kids will never know what it's like to open a damn book. Not that I'm old or anything. I just grew up with recycled dinosaur Windows 9x/ME computers and one Commodore 64

I was pretty thrilled to find one of these in a second-hand bookstore (and very cheap)!

My wife, the librarian, visited there from the West Coast. Pretty cool.

They're there mainly just to point you in the general direction. It's their job to be helpful. (I realized all three types of 'there' are that sentence.)