Research isn't the kind of thing it used to be, that's for sure. Today I set my composition classes to work on their research assignment. We met in the library--I was there to help them locate stuff or answer questions, but otherwise I let them handle their research however they chose.
I remember my long searches standing at the electronic catalog in Davis Library, the obligatory filling out of ILL forms for books and articles the library didn't have, the checking out as many possibly relevant titles as possible so that--and perhaps I was uncharitable here--others couldn't check them out before me . . . and then plowing through those stacks of books to find what might be useful to me.
Today? My students sat for a good 15-20 minutes looking at their smartphones before they did anything else. They scattered to computers and the stacks afterward, but I got the sense that they were actually doing searches on their phones. Nothing necessarily wrong with that in the 21st century . . . it's just not what would have occurred to me. I've certainly benefited in my own piddling research from the fact that so much stuff is available online.
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