Hard to believe, but there was a time when we did not have search engines at our finger tips or a point and click away on our keyboards.
Or one voice command away from the perfectly reviewed lunch outing. Before there were search engines, people had to use different tools to accomplish their goal of finding the answer to a question.
In the library, you had to learn the Dewey Decimal system. In terms of broad knowledge, many families owned encyclopedia collections with information on a wide diversity of topics from A to Z. At home libraries and collections of classics and contemporary books were common. Which is better?
The temptation here is to say search engines and the Internet by a significant margin. Results in milliseconds, virtually no topic is off limits, and in multiple languages, how could it not be superior to using the library or using the index of an encyclopedia to find out the topic? For instance, what if the collection is out of date? What if the volume corresponding to the letter of the topic or a related category does not have information pertaining to it? Search engine results are updated often after spiders parse the pages of websites and algorithms determine what should be returned to match the user’s query. In theory, the solution should improve over time and be relevant.
This is all true, but here are some important considerations to be aware. There is a commercial aspect to the curated results being returned after initiating a query. Search engine providers promote and display paid links first. Said providers of content also advertise their dedicated apps and the products and services of both itself and its partners. The results are also influenced by website owners that know how to cater their content to both their clientele and the bots that parse the various constituent pages of their sites. Then you have the reliability of the content that is being hosted throughout the web. Websites with commercial domains realistically have a financial incentive to post content that makes them money. If their audience expects the truth and honesty, economic forces will pressure the provider to be transparent and trustworthy. In contrast, if the user responds to misleading or outright false facts and propaganda, the website owner may choose to give the audience content that matches the opinions, beliefs, and attitude of those that visit it. This may or may not include accurate or precise details about the topic the user was intending to research or learn about. Libraries are typically non-profit entities that do not make money off their operations. Instead, the library performs a public service and exists at the whims of counties and municipalities that fund their activities. Encyclopedia publishers have a different business model than website owners (unless the domain is for a type of encyclopedia). People depend on the accuracy of the information within encyclopedias and are willing to pay for it. If the information was not reliable, there would be no market for the publisher based on a predictable marketplace reaction.
When visiting a library, if a person used the catalog to look up the Pop Art genre and artists that were proponents of this genre such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, the books would be in the section of the library that matched the Dewey decimal code in the catalog. In an encyclopedia, the artists and the genre would be in the table of contents in their respective volumes. A well-managed library will have the books on the correct shelf as long as they were not currently out on loan to another library or to a patron. An online database would have the article, journal, or book available as long as the user found the resource in the database via an advanced search. Then the user could view the resource as long as it was available for public consumption. Out in the open Internet online, a curious researcher would have to consider the domain extension (.edu, .gov, .org) and the reputation of the source before making a presumption that the online book, excerpt, or article is valid and trustworthy. Even reliable online resources such as Wikipedia can be edited by outsiders with an agenda. That is why institutions of learning typically do not accept Wikis as legitimate sources and will only accept the cited materials upon which the Wiki entry is based on.
Does the unpredictability of the Internet mean that we should reject it as a learning resource? No, comparing and contrasting old resources versus modern technology just reinforces the point that those wishing to learn more about a subject need to consider who they are getting the information from, whether there is the potential for bias, and if the information really answers the question. In many cases, there is still a lot of information that is not digitized and is only available in public libraries. You can also learn much about how the perspective towards a topic has changed when you analyze how events and things were defined or explained over the years in encyclopedias. The real takeaway ultimately is that we should not make assumptions and we challenge what we read instead of taking it for granted.
