Encyclopedia reader

Are there any other encyclopedia readers out there?  I remember when I was growing up I would read random articles in my old 1950's World Books when I couldn't sleep or when I was just curious about stuff.  It occurred to me yesterday that the internet is just one HUGE fix for anyone with an encyclopedia jones.  First there is, of course, the fantastic Wikipedia which contains boatloads of stuff not found in traditional encyclopedias.  Things like info on TV shows, movies, popular culture, authors, specific books, really anything that anyone has an interest in, no matter the seriousness of the subject matter.  I love that.  Love it.  If you have no idea what a mai tai is, you don't have to be embarrassed.  If you run across a coarse slang term and don't want to look like a rube,  you can look it up.  If your kid has a fever and you wonder what temperature is cause for concern, that info is just a click away.  

But Wikipedia is only a starting point.  There is so much more out there - articles, opinions, discussions, photos.  Just the photos alone is worth the price of admission.  There have been plenty of times when I looked up a rash to see if it looked more like eczema or poison ivy.  Or looked up historical sites to expand my mental image of something I'm educating myself about.  Fifteen years ago I went to live in Kaliningrad, Russia.  At the time I lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and had access to the tremendous library resources of the University of Michigan.  Yet the only photos I could find of Kaliningrad were of the city when it was still Konigsberg - before the war and its annihilation of that historical place.   Now both then and now pictures are, again, just a click away.  

It's kind of amazing how much time I've spent looking up answers to questions that before I had to just figure I'd probably never know because it wasn't worth the effort it would take me to track a person down who knew the answer.  And the stuff you can buy online!  My reading would never have been so diverse if I hadn't had so many online reader suggestions and so many inexpensive purchasing options.  I have to wonder how much stuff now gets "recycled" on eBay (as opposed to going in a landfill) just because of the ease of finding the market. 

I know the internet has any number of built-in problems, including being an inherent time suck, but I'd hate to go back to life B.I.