Every family had to have an encyclopedia, and a big fuckoff dictionary, and you had to actually leave the house, go to the library, search the card catalog, then prowl the stacks to look for information the encyclopedia and six-inch-thick dictionary did not have. Dark days, indeed.

Although nothing — nothing — will ever be better than the smell of a room full of old books.

Transcript:

Mr and Mrs Bugg each have a volume of the encyclopaedia, and are learning different things, as evidenced by their thought bubbles: Mr Bugg is learning about tofubeasts (or maybe dinosaurs?), knives and tall-masted ships, while Mrs Bugg is enjoying tales of exploding volcanoes and the deeds of the great explorers.

The text reads: “Decembug 6, 1768: The first edition of Encyclopaedia Buggtanica is published.”