Aladdin's Lamp

George Eliot: "We are going now to the British Museum to read--a fearful way of getting knowledge. If I had Aladdin's lamp I should certainly use it to get books served up to me at a moment's notice."

When I was a graduate student I spent tremendous amount of time in the library--researching the materials I need and browsing the materials I may need. Like me, all graduate students at the time spent a significant amount of their waking hours at libraries. Now the World Wide Web and Google make research so easy and so fast. If only George Eliot is alive today.

I remember when my son was in junior high, the school gave his class a pre-SAT test. He did very well in all categories, except for one that asks where one could find the proper information, i.e. when to use a dictionary, thosauraus, encyclopedia, etc. He was a smart kid but very confused on why internet was not among the choices given. I think he is more right and the teachers who prepared the answer sheet.