In short, no!

The UW Tacoma library has hundreds of subject encyclopedias, a great resource for some very non-elementary academic work. There are several reasons to use a subject encyclopedia.

1. Encyclopedias are curated and ad-free
   Subject encyclopedias give an overview of a broad topic, but are narrow enough to be applicable. Unlike a search engine, The Encyclopedia of Dance will not show you links to your neighborhood ballet school, and The Encyclopedia of Early Cinema won’t give you morning showtimes at your local movie theater.
2. Organized alphabetically by subtopic
   When you type a search phrase into Google, a mysterious algorithm decides what it thinks you’d like to see. The algorithm is proprietary and based on what is most popular. Flipping through a subject encyclopedia can give you the freedom to think more independently.
3. Written at the right level for preliminary research
   Academic articles are very narrowly focused, and are written for other experts in the field. They can be dense and use a lot of specific vocabulary. Wikipedia articles can be informative, but they can also ramble or be highly technical in their writing. Encyclopedia articles have been written with a consistent, straightforward style.
4. Easy to browse
   When you know you need to write a “paper about the labor movement” but don’t know what will hold your interest for several weeks, a subject encyclopedia is a great resource. You can quickly scan the table of contents and flip through the pages to see what catches your eye.
   
5. Isn’t scholarly, but references scholarly work.
   I use a subject encyclopedia for preliminary research as described above, but I also look at them to parse some of those dense academic writings for class. These won’t count for the “five scholarly articles” your professor asks you to find and read, but it can give the context to make reading those articles easier. It will also include references to scholarly sources you can use.

Try it for yourself. 

Try typing a general subject such as “race” “art” or “agriculture” and “encyclopedia” into the big purple search box on the library home page. It is highly likely there is a subject encyclopedia for your topic available online or in the Snoqualmie building.