How Do you Plug in a Book?

Some days, I feel like this should be mandatory training for students.  I had students from a grade student class who, in all seriousness, didn't know what an encyclopedia was nor the vaguest concept of how it was arranged. After a demonstration I kept thinking, but you know how to count and the alphabet, HOW are you not understanding this?  In the end, I THINK I got through to them by explaining that it was a really, really big book that was broken into chapters so that someone could lift it.   If the power ever goes out during a research project, I will be seen as a genius for possessing the ability to find information in paper form.  Until then, I have a pretty, 28 volume paperweight.  With pictures.