There was mentino in the papers today of how people aren't using encyclopedias any more because they have Google. It occurred to me that I haven't used an encyclopedia since elementary school, because they contain the wrong scope of information.

I do three types of research: academic research, work-related research, and personal research. For all the academic research I've had to do since the beginning of high school, encyclopedia articles have been too much of an overview without enough details. They would be helpful if I knew nothing about the subject, yes, but when I'm assigned an essay or a project I already know the basics of the subject and need more in-depth and specialized material than one would find in an encyclopedia. For these projects I use a mix of internet, books, and academic journals.

In my work-related research, I'm usually looking for something extremely specific, or extremely specialized. For example, I'm looking for a particular clause of a particular law, which I wouldn't find in an encyclopedia but on the internet (or in a law book). Or I'm looking for the title of a specific individual, which obviously wouldn't be in an encyclopedia. Or I'm trying to figure out what a "CU time-out sequence" is, which is far too specialized to be in an encyclopedia (and even if it were, I couldn't look it up without context). I use specialized terminology banks for most of this stuff, but if those don't help, Google will get me closer to what I need than an encyclopedia ever will.

My personal research is very diverse, about any little thing I happen to be wondering at the time. "What's that song I heard that keeps repeating 'Wo bist du? Wo bist du?'" "What was the name of that cop show sendoff on Square One when I was a kid?" "When's Easter in 2007?" While an encyclopedia might be able to tell me that Easter is the Sunday after the full moon after the spring equinox, it won't be able to give me the specific answers I need. My questions are too small, and they fall through the cracks of an encyclopedia.

Encyclopedias are useful if you need to write 500 words on the main causes of World War I, or you need to write a paragraph about trees, or you want to look at the retro 60s pictures in your parents' old World Book (which is thinly disguised US propoganda), but they are inherently finite and can't address the day to day research needs of the 21st century.