“Dude, how did you do that so fast?” – Libraries at Warp Speed

“Better than Google: Libraries offer online databases with quality information – for free,” by Dan Giancaterino, from “Philadelphia Lawyer,” courtesy of Jenkins Law Library. Article here.

“One evening, my daughter’s boyfriend parked himself in front of my computer for a couple of hours, furiously typing away. Finally I asked him what he was doing. (Actually, I wanted him to go home.) “I’m trying to find a schematic for my car’s electrical system on Google,” he said. “I need to know where the heater blower resistor is located because I have to replace it. But all I’m getting is junk.” I told him to take a break and kicked him off the PC. He went to raid the fridge and I went to work. I accessed the Delaware County Library System, www.delcolibraries.org, clicked on the Auto Repair Reference Center, and typed in my card number. Once I was logged into the database, I clicked on the appropriate year, make and model of car. Then I selected the electrical system and printed out the schematic. Total elapsed time: around five minutes. The boyfriend was amazed: “Dude, how did you do that so fast?” Did I tell him? Nope … “knowledge is power.”

So go on and check out your own public library’s database subscriptions.