The use of technology in the library has saved both users and librarians heaps of time and effort, although the fast-paced advancement of technology has also made the use of it in research and study a Red Queen’s Race. For those who have not yet read Lewis Carroll’s excellent tale “Through the looking-glass and what Alice found there”*, here is an excerpt of what the Red Queen’s race is:
Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterwards, how it was that they began: all she remembers is, that they were running hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do to keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying ‘Faster! Faster!’ but Alice felt she COULD NOT go faster, though she had not breath left to say so.
The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other things round them never changed their places at all: however fast they went, they never seemed to pass anything. ‘I wonder if all the things move along with us?’ thought poor puzzled Alice. And the Queen seemed to guess her thoughts, for she cried, ‘Faster! Don’t try to talk!’
The Queen propped her up against a tree, and said kindly, ‘You may rest a little now.’
Alice looked round her in great surprise. ‘Why, I do believe we’ve been under this tree the whole time! Everything’s just as it was!’
‘Of course it is,’ said the Queen, ‘what would you have it?’
‘Well, in OUR country,’ said Alice, still panting a little, ‘you’d generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.’
‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now, HERE, you see, it takes all the running YOU can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!’
It seems nonsensical and paradoxical, but yet it is very true. To stay where we are – ie., proficient in conducting research or locating information for our studies – we have to continuously adapt and re-adapt, and re-adapt again, to the constantly changing faces of technology.
We figure out how to do the same thing through generations and varieties of browsers (Internet Explorer, Safari, FireFox, Chrome and so forth), on generations and varieties of devices (PCs and Macs, tablets and smartphones and so forth), and to add salt to our wounds, databases and websites frequently change their interfaces and even names. Yesterday’s Global Market Information Database – an excellent resource for consumer product markets worldwide – becomes today’s Passport. Web of Science – a well-respected index of peer-reviewed journals – changes its front page drastically, offering a simplified search box instead of a list of databases.
Nonetheless, we sally forth, gamely learning and re-learning how to use our favourite databases, figuring out how to get the best information in the least amount of time, passing on tips and tricks to colleagues and classmates on search strategies.
Until the next time the databases go through another major revamp, that is. Then we start running as fast as we can again, to stay in the same place. But looking back at the “good old days” of flipping through huge tomes of printed indices in the hopes of finding something relevant, or swapping out CD-ROM after CD-ROM while staring at a bulky cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitor, technology has still been more of a boon than a bane.
If you do feel swamped and overwhelmed by the deluge of new things to learn, new interfaces and new devices, you are not alone. And of course, for library databases, help is only a phone-call (or email, or chat screen) away.
* You can find “Through the looking-glass and what Alice found there” in the Central Library (call #: PR4611 T).