Information - Then and Information - Now

1/26/2018

THEN:
 
There was a time, long, long ago, and some of you will remember this, that when you needed to gather information on a subject for a school paper, you used the dreaded ENCYCLOPEDIA!

When I was a teenager, there was a variety of encyclopedias to buy: Britannica, World Book and the much dreaded by me: Collier's.  Some encyclopedia salesman (in those days people did actually sell door-to-door, convinced my Dad that the best encyclopedia was Collier's.  First, they were heavy and difficult to use.  The history of Collier's started in 1950-1952.  Originally, there were 20 volumes but in 1962 (about the time I would have used them) were expanded to 24 volumes. Collier's last edition was in 1997, and in 1998 Microsoft acquired the company.

I wanted to use World Book encyclopedias whenever I had to do a paper for school. My friends had World Book encyclopedias, and whenever I needed to do research, my first choice was World Book.  Never mind that the Collier's encyclopedias was sitting on bookshelves in the house, I didn't like using them.  

And oh, how the times have changed! 

NOW:

With the birth of the internet, and where have you been all my life, researching became easier.  Google happened, and now you can research and receive information on just about any subject that you want.

How much does person "x" make?  Where did someone go to school?  What's happening in the world? You can even Google yourself, if that's your thing.  Google is basically an encyclopedia at your fingertips, but getting the information you need/want is as easy as 1, 2 and 3.  Google made it's first appearance in 1998, and nothing has been the same since.  While it took me a moment (okay, more than a moment), to come to terms with using Google, which is now my friend.

I wasn't born in the computer age.  The personal computer (PC) launched in 1981.  It was as foreign to me as if I had just landed here from Mars.  I remember vividly when Jeff bought an IBM computer and put it on a desk and plugged it in.  While he was at work, I would stare at this machine, and my attempts to use it failed.  In those days, it was used more as a word processor, because the internet had not yet arrived.

Through trial and error (many times), I began to be more comfortable, particularly when these computers started showing up in offices.  Soon, mostly gone were the days of the typewriter, and you as an office worker had to basically sink or swim.  

And, then the internet came along, it launched the World Wide Web in 1991, and nothing has been the same since.  Something new to learn, and I did eventually get there, but it was a bit of a struggle.  It seems as if the older I get, the harder it is for me to learn and/or master some devices (cellphones, for instance comes to mind). 

I'm happy to say that I now consider myself computer savvy, at least as much as I need to be.  Luckily, for me, I have a husband and two sons that can and have bailed me out when my computer (or more likely me) aren't working right.

Disclaimer: if I have gotten dates/names incorrect, I did my best to be accurate.

P