Technology and Slogging

A few months ago I was visiting my alma mater, the University of Idaho, and decided to check out what changes had been made at the library. There, in a display as an historical artifact, was a card catalogue. While doing a Google search recently I was reminded of the card catalogue and the fact that a lot of research is no longer a slog. The question is, is this a good thing? How could it not be? Just do a Google or Bing search and presto all the information you need is right there on the net, right? Well there are three problems that come to mind immediately.

There has been a lot written about the first two problems, that of inaccuracy and the flood of information. Most people understand that if you are doing a school paper, citing Scientific American’s website is acceptable, but Uncle Joes Weird Phenomenon blog, not so much. There has also been much written about the flood of information available. So much information is available it can be hard to sort out the relevant from the background noise. However, I have not seen too much written about the third problem, the ease of research as compared to previous methods.

I may be an old fuddy duddy, but there seems to be less slogging needed to do research today, at least for high school and undergraduate research papers. When I was in school you had to actually dig to get the research you needed. In high school, if you were lucky you had an encyclopedia in the home. Even then you still needed to go down to the library and use a card catalogue and The Readers’ Guide to Periodicals. Finding sources for your papers was hard work, it required slogging. So why is lack of slogging in research for high school and undergraduate courses so bad?

Because real research, the kind that relies on the scientific method or use of primary sources can still be a slog. You have to create experiments that meet rigorous requirements or you have to consult primary sources that may be buried in letters and other documents, often written in another language. If you have never had to slog through research to write papers in high school and college, the slog of doing original research may create a bit of a culture shock. Research the “old fashion way” at least helped one prepare for the rigors of doing primary research.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a Luddite, I am not advocating the return of the card catalogue or doing away with computer aided research. I am merely pointing out that one of the good things about research today, the ease at which information is retrieved, has its downside. Maybe there was some benefit to doing research in the days of card catalogues and guides to periodicals. A little slog is good for the soul.