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A library at your fingertips
Lately I was chatting a lot with Sar, and a few times she kind of wrote 'How can you know this, or find it so fast', adding some smilies with an open mouth.
I had a similar experience few years back, whilst chatting with John.
I was stunned to read his 'knowledge'. How could he know so much...
I couldn't help thinking 'This guy is sitting in a library or what'.
And then suddenly the coin fell...
We are all sitting in a huge library, and things are just fingertips away.
We google it and within minutes Wikipedia or other related entries find their way into your browser and thus into your mind.
Knowledge is no longer our biggest concern, how to find the knowledge is the bigger issue. And the struggle of the fittest has changed into the struggle of the one that can find.
But also into 'the one that can situate it', because the internet isn't neutral, and you have to be able to 'process' the data you get, into valuable information.
The moment my coin fell, some years ago, I started seeing things differently.
Search in a different way, and get more info to me, instead of me looking for the information.
Lately I tend to be surrounded with people that do the same, but I still see a lot of people who's 'coin didn't fall yet', who have the resources in front of them, but still don't know how to handle the tools.
So when you are reading this little post, think about it: how do you surf?
Technorati Tags: internet, library at your fingertips
Posted on February 23, 2007
in Limit of my knowledge
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Comments (3)
Comments
My coin didn't fall yet :(
Posted by Sara | February 23, 2007 3:16 PMIt's worth looking beyond the challenge of finding things while surfing: ambient findability [ http://findability.org ] also looks into finding stuff elsewhere and being found.
Posted by Bernard Vander Beken | February 24, 2007 2:44 PMYou have a good point there, Ine. When I compare the way I use the internet now with the way I used it when I first got to know it, somewhere in the mid nineties, there's really a big difference in 'findability'. Google helps a lot, but the customizable search engines in Firefox do a lot of good too. I just don't think the general public is aware of what they achieve by just using a couple of extra tools. My parents have got the hang of e-mailing by now, but there is now way I could ever get them to use Wikipedia, or even tabs. I do wonder when they will 'see the light'...
Posted by Stijn | March 2, 2007 5:14 PM