Return to: Putting It All Together

The different ways that people access information have changed tremendously in the last 40 years or so. The changes are coming at a faster rate, especially since the introduction of the World Wide Web, and we can only expect that the changes will continue at the same pace, if not even faster.

It will be important not only for success in your research, but also for your life, to be able to find reliable information by yourselves and not be reliant upon others. Remember what Madison said. If you master the primary skills in these pages, you will have made an important step toward intellectual independence.

Many may complain that it is unduly complicated finding information, and they are right. Many old ways continue only out of habit and perhaps should be reconsidered, while some of the new ways are not as good as they are advertised. Without any doubt, the current system could and should be improved.

However that may be, it's important to remember that in spite of its complexity, it is immeasurably easier today to do research than it has ever been in the past. Today, we still have library catalogs that are perhaps based on an older time, but we have seen that there are real advantages in the older methods that the new tools cannot provide. Today, we can search the Russian State Library's catalog, the U.S. Library of Congress catalog, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and our little (but unique!) AUR catalog, all just as easily as any other. These clicks into other catalogs were considered to be science fiction just 40 or 50 years ago! We have seen powerful tools, full-text and others, that are available at simply the click of a button.

Imagine what it was like before computers and being stuck with only a card catalog of your own, local collection! But in its day, the introduction of the card catalog was considered a vast improvement over what people worked with before.

Imagine:

Walking around CARD CATALOGS

Browsing CARDS No keyword searching

Browsing lots of PRINTED JOURNAL INDEXES

Going back to the CARD CATALOGS

Finding the CITATIONS to other materials

Going back to the CARD CATALOGS over and over again.

MANUSCRIPT CATALOGS that is, if they were lucky enough to pry them out of the hands of the librarians! Remember, this was a manuscript: that means, one copy! They had to be very careful with it.

SCROLLS

Cuneiform Tablets?

So, in spite of the problems, it really is easier than ever before!