God bless the internet.

It’s a phenomenal thing. I was watching (helping?) my boss restore a backup from our network server the other day and just thought who on earth would ever invent a computer. Just sitting there one day, pen in hand, paper and abacus on desk, and think - I bet I can get electricity to work this out for me. What a leap of thought that is to take, never mind the actual transition to making it happen.

I find it hard to imagine that I would have been able to complete my MPhil without the internet. Fingers crossed, I will (it’s still not quite submitted…). I would have had to spend a lot more time physically in the library looking at journals, cross-referencing books, travelling to archives.

Today, for example, I have used: JSTOR and Muse (collections of online journal, essentially covering the majority of respected publications, all articles available in pdf format for download); the British Film Institute online collection of images, documentation of film productions and later will be looking at a couple of their online videos including one of Ellen Terry. I’ve accessed numerous newspapers from 1890-1910 including the Daily Telegraph, the New York Times, the Times, and the Dickens publications Household Words, and been able to search each one using the relevant keywords for articles I’m hoping to find - given that there is very very little critical work on Hall Caine, going back to the original commentary is essential. I’ve used Google books to check references, find more up to date references to follow up on and in some cases, simply accessed the entire book - one written in 1897, for example, which is available in its entirety - with illustrations in pdf (to download as well) or plain text for faster loading.

On Google.com, searching for ‘dickens + collins + mathews’ rought up precisely the connection I was hoping existed between the three of them, as well as full text of Dickens’s letter to Collins discussing Mathews’s performance, in a quality edited book available in its entirety on Google books. Needing to know the precise quotation and location of said quote, in a book a little over 600 pages long, I can access the book on Gutenberg, search for what I think I remember of the phrase to find the chapter and significantly cut down the time needed to find the reference. The majority of that is also freely available. JSTOR and Muse are subscription through libraries and disappointingly, the Times Archive isn’t free - it was when it launched but I guess that was just to get people interested.

This sort of goes against my upset at California replacing textbooks with electronic information. I don’t like the idea. I do think that books are wonderful - hello, I study English, have we met? - but it’s deeper than that. Above, the information I was looking for was very specific and I knew what I was looking for, if not quite where it was.  When I read a newspaper online, I click on the links that look to interest me. When I read it in paper format, I read the whole thing and consequently read a lot more, and learn other things.  I think you pick up more additional information when you’re going through a text book. Knowledge is so transient when gained from the internet, I feel sort of awkward about it. I’m not sure if that just makes me somehow outdated already, but I think books are essential and should be used alongside online materials. Not to mention the added complication that unless you’re giving all the children e-readers they can’t take things home, on the bus or train or whatever. That’s valuable reading time wasted! And then there’s the fact that after spending all day staring at a screen, my eyes hurt, and I don’t believe it’s a coincidence.