There was a time when information gathering was a laborious business. Regal way had to be tossed books and magazines, huge indexes revealed an at least, could be where something (whether it really fits the theme, was again a matter of luck).
A colleague reported, for example, from his student days (the mid-80s was that) as he went for a research paper in the university library, armed with a pad, a pen and a copy card. Then he was looking in comments and microfilm lists for references to a legal problem, wrote neatly on track, volume and page or index or whatever decision he had for information to the desired Article, BGH-decision, or what was always there to find out. With perhaps 20 such records, he set out then, sought out each source of huge, hall-filling shelves and looked at the lyrics. One third of the sites, he estimates, does not really his problem, and another quarter was already obsolete and at best, on the edge helpful.
As from finds in the first round were happy to pick out other references, the whole thing repeated so often three or four iterations, until enough material for a fancy house had working together. So then went an entire weekend for a civil law term paper, but overall thinks so he would have been worth it despite all the effort anyway.
How much easier the world but now: Google call, enter one or two keywords, and immediately the whole screen full of goal-oriented instructions on where to find for answers to his questions. been a few years ago started tentatively experienced this type of research such a boom, "google" as a new verb that is now officially included in the German language.
about the quality of the links found in each case that says unfortunately, not much. The concept of Google, on the one hand the number of references to evaluate a source (the more people link to a page, it must be all the more interesting I suppose), and also clicks on the Google link to belong to this page (more often this search result is also called actually, the more important it must have to be) is approaching its limits.
Today it is already such that a significant proportion of links leading to some forum posts from 2002 to 2008, echoed the often still unheard. But when it comes to such current issues in the computer business, it helps me much to know how the problem was solved under Windows ME. The scorn, of course, are absolutely forum discussions in which the questioner is taught in almost outrageously aggressive tone, but he would kindly ask Google before it pollutes the forum with such a stupid question ...
Well, I think the times are changing again. Either Google finds an algorithm that takes into account the age of the references to, or the search function on the Internet exactly the same again, as once in the old university library. I'm curious.
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