It is worrying how people don't seem so keen on the idea that information acquired in the library is of greater value then that which they can get more easily online. It seems people no longer care what the treasure is as long as the search for it is as easy as possible. People don't seem to want good information, they are scared of it. Because if they find it then they will be plagued with the onerous burden of finding it every time which is just too darn difficult and too much work.
I have the good fortune to have grown up with access to a series of encyclopedia Britannica’s that were written before the turn of the 20th century. They belonged to an old army colonel who owned the house my parent’s bought and he did not take them with him. They are moldy and they stink and they are rarely read. However if you were to read some of the articles and compare them to the articles on Wikipedia you would notice a great difference. There is a professionalism in the writing and the extent to which the subjects are researched and covered in the Britanicas is far greater then Wikipedia. Wikipedia entries by comparison read like they were written by an underling whose boss told him to bang out an article by this date or you are fired. There is a business philosophy that has crept its way into academia and that is that we have to do things faster and we have to do more. Indeed we are doing things faster and we are doing more but when it comes to information it would be of far greater benefit if we did less in less time if the result was a more complete coverage of the topic. This also indicates a dumbing down of society, it’s tragic. What’s worse is that few people know it because the internet is the only way they know of to get information, it is the only source they choose to expose themselves to.
