The Web is turning my brain to mush

[snousle]

Had an interesting, possibly pivotal experience today. I accompanied my sister on her morning commute, about 25 km out of town to Lincoln University. While there, I spent about ten minutes in the university library. I love book carts - snooping on whatever other people are reading never ceases to be entertaining.

Anyway, by just picking up books at random, I immediately gained insight into questions I'd had about a couple subjects - some things concerning Petri nets, and the effect of CO2 on radiation transport in the atmosphere. These issues are notable because I had specifically pursued them on the web with unsatisfactory results. Yet here they were, laid out very clearly in books I picked up by browsing through a completely unorganized pile.

I realized, much to my shame, that it has been nearly a decade since I spent any time in a university library. The Web is too seductive - it's all information candy, in contrast to the solid, um, fiber of a real bookshelf. Apparently the good stuff doesn't come easily or for free, and I've lost sight of that fact in a big way.

This comes on the heels of a short article that had already gotten me thinking along these lines - The Beauty of Settled Science - which contained this gem of a quote:

A steady diet of science news is bad for you: You are what you eat, and if you eat only science reporting on fluid situations, without a solid textbook now and then, your brain will turn to liquid.

So true. The time has come to hit the books again, and stop paying attention to fluff at the margins.

Comments

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

I find this with medical info - the science IS on the net, but you have to pay for the solid stuff. Almost everything else is abstracts or marketing.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Medline, Chemical Abstracts - all kinds of resources like that are available online by paid subscription only. I have no idea what such things cost now, but I remember being boggled at the price of the subscription to the printed Chem Abstracts volumes at my college's research library in the mid-80s.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

We currently have access to an "unused" academic subscription via UCSC that gets us almost all the primary literature. (BTW, let me know if you want anything, it won't last forever.) But that's a hard slog.

Even so, I have grossly underutilized this subscription. I should make the most of it while it lasts.

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

I remember a friend subscribing to a printed magazine that boasted a very limited subscriber base. You couldn't buy it in stores so I guess the idea was that anyone subscribing was exclusive or something. Kind of a weird thing nowadays with web publishing being what to do.

I like University libraries. They always have way stranger and obscure stuff than the regular public libraries.

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

NO! You can't just read a book ... you need a new KINDLE! You can now even read your KINDLE in direct SUNLIGHT!

[mellowtigger]

I do think it's better to continuously try to relate these snippets of stories to your actual daily life/routine, applying the information in some way.

I'm not convinced, however, that these two different diets result in the same "liquid brain" state:

http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/usatoday-LifeTopStories
http://www.sciencedaily.com/rss/top_news/top_science.xml

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

LJ is fluff at the margins ....