Online access is just a click away.
The first release of the World Book Encyclopedia was in 1917 - all eight volumes of it. My own parents were never able to afford this for us, but our local library owned a set, which we all used for our school reports. My children have an over-abundance of multimedia encyclopedias because of my occupation. We enjoy looking at them all, but World Book is the one we'll keep. No, WB is not as sleek as Encarta, but it does have more information available, and it's easier to work with.