Interent down -- shades of 1886 Ice Storm 

Yesterday, just as the storm was picking up tempo, I got an email from a distant publisher asking whether I want to write a quick children’s history text. I knew a little about the topic (which I’m not allowed to mention here) but not a lot. So, of course, I went to Google. I poked around in Amazon.com to see what others had written on the topic. I looked up a few scholarly papers. I visited the web sites of a related government agencies. I downloaded a bunch of photos from the Library of Congress.

Two hours later I was up to speed on the topic. I could already imagine the shape of the potential new book, tick off the key chapters, and sketch out the main characters. I knew, to put it simply, what I needed to know. Plus I knew where to find the resources. Ten years ago this wasn’t possible. Five, even two years ago, my search would have been more difficult and less effective.

That’s because the Internet is getting smarter and faster. Thanks to the amazing Google algorithms, searches are pulling in a wider, richer and more organized array of data in nanoseconds. I routinely back up my traditional search with a peak into Google Scholar, Google Images and Google Blog. As to Google Books – don’t get me started.

Old history books that I could scarcely locate on Bookfinder.com last year are now reprinted in full on Google Books. I can upload them as a PDF file and search the entire text in minutes. I recently printed three 19^th century books, each about 300 pages, onto my high-speed printer. It wasn’t quite free. The paper cost about $2.50 per book, the ink possibly another $3-$5 each. I used an old three-hole punch and put the pages into old three-ring binders, then I scribbled handwritten notes all across the pages. Only then did I transfer my written notes to the digital computer. I find, despite technology, that I retain information better if I run the facts from my brain, through my fingers onto the page, and then reread the data. I’m sure I could do all this within the "cloud" of Google applications, but the Internet cloud sometimes disappears on cloudy winter days.

It may not be a paperless green environment; I still prefer books. But eventually I will recycle the pages and use the binders again. But I am tapping richer deeper resources than ever before at minimal expense without leaving my office. Think of all the gas and plane tickets I’m not buying. From a research perspective, it’s a frickin’ miracle.

After all the resources are gathered, then I read and then I write. I don’t need the Internet for those tasks. I use a light bulb, a pen and a computer. But even then I’m checking the Web for little details, looking things up in Dictionary.com and finding people up on BigYellow.com, or I’m sending passages of my writing to experts who email back instant commentary. And I’m always using Google to enrich my understanding of little things. I am tapping into the brains of people I’ll never meet, then leaping to another.

That ability to leapfrog from source to source may be the most important advantage of the Web. As a journalist I know that half of what I read online is crap, probably more. I know that people who don’t know what they are talking about never stop talking, and that authors of books lie, or they make mistakes, or they don’t triple check their resources. I know that history shifts and facts change and public opinion changes even faster, and that every story has not two or three viewpoints, but dozens, maybe more. So I use the Internet to get a variety of views, to confirm facts, to drill closer and closer to the primary sources.

And I do all this as I am writing, which in itself, is a form of multi-tasking. I used to think of researching and writing as wholly separate tasks, as different as playing the piano and climbing a mountain. Thanks to the Internet, I am writing a little as I research and researching a little as I write. And I am getting better at both -- unless the ice comes and the Internet freezes up.

© 2008 by J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved.