No One writes of a story in the Buffalo News
Should today’s libraries, with limited funding, buy sets of glossy new encyclopedias – or put that money into online databases and other Internet research tools?
“Look at any library in the country now,” said Neal Wyatt of the American Library Association. “The computer section is full of people doing all sorts of things – while the reference section has nobody in it…
Then again, Internet resources can vanish once you stop paying for them – unlike books, which stay on the shelves forever.”
the purpose of most school assignments
The purpose (or one of the purposes) of most school assignments is to teach kids how to do the research. For instance, the kid who has the assignment on the history of jellybean. Is the history of the jellybean going to help him get ahead in life? Of course not. It’s a dumb assignment, really. But the skills in using the library finding out about the jellybean… something else entirely.
For this reason, a lot of teachers locally say things like, “You need five sources, three must be books, only one can be an encyclopedia, only one can be a web page,” etc. It’s important to have all these sources available. I’d feel like a real inferior librarian if I were constantly going to InfoTrac or WorldCat or referenceUSA to find an article that for all intents in purposes should be other places in my library, as well.
No one source is ever the be all and end all.
As far as using sites you find by Googling? Better have those reference books handy… I want a print publisher to back up that Thomas Crapper invented the flush toilet, thank you.
Who really invented the flushing toilet?
Thomas Crapper just improved on the flushing toilet. “In 1778 Joseph Brahmah, an English Cabinetmaker, patented an improved flush toilet” (World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. P, pg 580). And Brahmah himself was improving on the recently patented water-closet valve system of Alexander Cumming (“Joseph Brahmah,” World of Invention, 2nd ed. Gale Group, 1999, Reproduced in Biography Resource Center).
Re:Who really invented the flushing toilet?
More on the elusive Mr. Crapper from snopes.com.
Books
unlike books, which stay on the shelves forever
Until they get weeded, lost or stolen that is.