Why Do They Need To Know That?

Bibliophile: One who loves books and literature.

That's me! Libraries, bookstores, anything and everything book related. Yet, due to the invention of the internet(thank you, Al Gore!), those ginormous walls of leather bound volumes are not obsolete. Nor is the daily newspaper. Nor are letters from my friends and clients thanks to E mail.

So, for me, the net is the best thing ever. It makes possible, well, pretty much everything!

So, why do I tell you this? Here's a little story...

Yesterday, I was chatting with a new friend, Pat. Pat is a senior citizen who doesn't act like one. She used to work in a nursing home facility and enthralled me with tales of the exciting lives those under her caretook part in.

She spoke of one particular old fellow who used to be a teacher. He passed away at 104, just a few years ago and with all his cognitive abilities. When she asked him to compare his life with the lives young people live now, he said he saw the necessity of computers, but thought there was a great loss. That is, no one knows how to look up things in the card catalog any more. No one knows how to research without google. No one knows the depth one had to dig to find their particular interest in those afore mentioned shelves of books.

My question...why does that skill need to exist in the 21st century? Granted, I'd LOVE to be stuck in a library pulling volume after volume off the wall. But can I? Nope! Thanks to the net, though, that previously printed info is now available to me. And for everyone else, they can learn anything they'd probably ever want to know from the comfort of home.

I simply never, ever want to reach a point where I cannot see value in new things because they're different or easier than how I've done them. THAT is when we truly stop living.