24 replies to this topic

[Charlieman]

My query is motivated by a comment from popular science journalist Bryan Appleyard that "Google has made reference books obsolete".

 

I'm not asking for advice on how to find information, although incidental tips are welcome. I'm interested in opinions about how much accurate historical data (prior to 1993, say) can be retrieved from a search of the web or Usenet or older digital archives with a web interface. 1993 is roughly the time when the internet became a public resource and enthusiast web sites developed.

 

When I'm watching TV, I often write a reminder to myself about an alleged fact or a vehicle or a location that intrigues me. Some facts (eg date when post-WWII meat rationing ended in the UK) are easy to find on the internet, but identification of an unfamiliar vehicle requires a lot of work. It's usually easier to scan through an A to Z model/manufacturer book.

 

Once I've established the basics, the internet doesn't necessarily take me much further. The best enthusiast web sites provide me with information that I half remember or could have guessed, with recommendations for specialist books.

 

My experience is that it is easier to browse photos in a reference book than on the internet and that a 20 year old book will give all of the basics about a marque. Is Bryan Appleyard talking tosh or should I try harder?

[B Squared]

I'm currently assisting a good friend on research for his latest book and have found hard copies of books, newspapers and magazines, plus internet searches to be helpful on the subject. I've found many new pieces of information via the internet, but this sometimes involves putting together numerous key search words before revealing new sources for the desired info and results. I wouldn't give up on either avenue in favor of the other.

[Michael Ferner]

I vote for tosh.

 

Mind you, I'm an avid (some would say obsessive) user of the internet, but I'm using it mainly to discover archives of "real" information, e.g. microfilmed newspapers or photographs. My interest for enthusiast web sites is minimal, almost zero, unless they contain scans of "real" material, that is. The rest of the internet is like wikipedia for me, I avoid it whenever possible, and always have a rather large jug of salt at my side.

Edited by Michael Ferner, 03 January 2015 - 15:19.

[alansart]

Historical Research has become very confused by the Internet. Too much copy and paste of incorrect information.

 

On the plus side it has allowed us to access often personal stories and photographs that would never have come into the public domain.

Edited by alansart, 03 January 2015 - 16:14.

[Magoo]

I would describe the internet as not quite ready for serious research. But it's getting better every day as more material is digitized and uploaded. In 10 years it will be an incredible resource. 

[B Squared]

I vote for tosh.
 
Mind you, I'm an avid (some would say obsessive) user of the internet, but I'm using it mainly to discover archives of "real" information, e.g. microfilmed newspapers or photographs.

Thanks for conveying my approach much better than I did in my initial statement.

[GMiranda]

I agree with Michael Ferner, even if I think some websites are very good and also the social networks allow us to find contacts of a lot of people, even some of the drivers and other sport-related people from the past, for that I keep my Facebook account.

[PCC]

The internet is just an information delivery system, and any delivery system is just as good - or just as bad - as its source. The problem with the internet is that it's not mediated in any way, so the many bad sources are all right there with the few good ones - indeed the former can drown out the latter. The fact that something's in print certainly doesn't ensure that it's accurate, but printed materials are usually  subjected to some kind of scrutiny before publication. Moreover, printed material has identifiable authors, who are therefore accountable for what they write. Online, the only filters are the reader's own, who must consequently be very, very wary. On the whole, I think Michael has it right, and Appleyard has it wrong.

 

That said, I am occasionally astounded by the useful material I can now find online (from 'reliable' sources, like archives or libraries). Documents that I used to have to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to see in archives now pop up on my screen in an instant.

 

But the sheer volume of dross that surrounds those gems cannot be overstated.

[BRG]

 

But the sheer volume of dross that surrounds those gems cannot be overstated.

Have you been in any library? I have seen some real dross there. The internet is just a very large digital library.  If you look at the right book/website, you get the information you seek.  If you look at the wrong book/website, you get a recipe for scones or a porn movie.  I don't trust or believe everything I find in books or on the internet.

 

The idea that written material is inherently more reliable or has been scrutinised objectively is rather naive, I think.  I give you Erich von Daniken's works, or the books that Dan Brown drew upon to write 'The Da Vinci Code'.  None of those ought to have got past any proper objective scrutiny but the phenomenon of 'vanity publishing' allows all sorts of nonsense to get issued in print.  The internet merely makes that easier.

[Michael Ferner]

[quote]The internet merely makes that easier.[/quite]

 

Yeah, and I guess that's the point! "Vanity publishing" is a good one, but you still nead a publisher to put up the money, and book stores willing to sell, and that's where a lot of nonsense gets stifled very early on. On the net, you only need to know basic HTML. Heck, not even that!

 

What it all comes to is that serious work diminishes, and dross multiplies exponentially.

[BRG]

Going OT, but the point of vanity publishing is that the author essentially pays for it, not the publisher.  

 

And even in mainstream publishing, there are books that are manifestly nonsense - such as Atlantis, the Illuminati, conspiracy theory of every sort and so on - but which have a market amongst those that believe in this rubbish.  Or the works of Barbara Cartland and such like.  Publishers will publish if they think they can sell the books.

[Terry Walker]

In fact all reference books and other material are NOT available on the internet-- as a percentage, very little is, in fact. In some highly specialised areas no doubt there is fairish percentage, but the whole thing is patchy and erratic at best.

 

Just thinking of my own tiny field of research, Western Australian motorsport history, hardly anything is digital. Serried ranks of short-lived commercial magazines, club newsletters, programmes, minute books, official results sheets, stewards' reports, rally route books, and so forth and so on endlessly, are still on paper only (if they exist at all), and some early specialist magazines are in the rare book section of the State Library, in a frail state. 

[Allan Lupton]

Serried ranks of short-lived commercial magazines, club newsletters, programmes, minute books, official results sheets, stewards' reports, rally route books, and so forth and so on endlessly, are still on paper only (if they exist at all), and some early specialist magazines are in the rare book section of the State Library, in a frail state. 

Following on from what Terry wrote, one needs to distinguish primary source material (what he refers to above) and secondary.

The Internet has very little primary source material as it has to be scanned, etc. and the cost of doing that would not be recoverable, whereas libraries can charge for research and photocopying.

 

As we all know, unreliable tracts of poorly researched opinion, passed off as fact, have a habit of appearing wherever a slipshod compiler who can't be bothered to check, wants to cut-and-paste.

 

Typically an example appeared in a link from this Forum only yesterday, where it was stated that the UK registration letters "EX" were Luton - with a backup link which gave a little more information, but was still wrong for the number and year in question..

Edited by Allan Lupton, 04 January 2015 - 14:54.

[Michael Ferner]

The Internet has very little primary source material as it has to be scanned, etc. and the cost of doing that would not be recoverable, whereas libraries can charge for research and photocopying.

 

Which seems to me to be the main problem. Much of the internet is for free, and like everything which is cheap it is pretty much worthless. Nobody wants to work for free, so free content means those who provide it don't take pride in their work, and standards fall. You can see this everywhere in the modern world, products are getting cheaper day by day, and the quality suffers. Try buying good food these days, it's almost impossible!

 

Most of the time I spend on the internet is on pay sites. There's one big newspaper archive that's for free, and it's a pain in the arse to work with. I'm sure the provider thinks he's a good samaritan, but thanks to him nobody will touch the area that he does with a ten-foot pole because the market is covered, hence it's pretty much lost to serious research. Well done, asshole!!

 

I hate the "cheap is good" mentality. Nothing has ever come from cheap, except greed.

[PCC]

Have you been in any library? I have seen some real dross there.

And so have I. But the proportion of dross to quality is much higher on the internet. The vast majority of what's online has had to satisfy absolutely no one but the author. Printed materials usually have several taskmasters, and this fact alone makes it harder (but obviously not impossible) to produce dross. As you point out, that in no way guarantees quality. But it makes it significantly more likely. Plenty of dross still slips through the publishing process. But a vast amount gets posted on the web.

[Richard Jenkins]

[size=4][font='times new roman']Which seems to me to be the main problem. Much of the internet is for free, and like everything which is cheap it is pretty much worthless. Nobody wants to work for free, so free content means those who provide it don't take pride in their work, and standards fall.

Or maybe Michael, some of us who do work for free, or even for a loss, take pride in their work even more as it Is open to the public. Id argue ORC.com and WATN are above quality over many paid sites.

[GMACKIE]

Which seems to me to be the main problem. Much of the internet is for free, and like everything which is cheap it is pretty much worthless. Nobody wants to work for free, so free content means those who provide it don't take pride in their work, and standards fall. You can see this everywhere in the modern world, products are getting cheaper day by day, and the quality suffers. Try buying good food these days, it's almost impossible!

 

Most of the time I spend on the internet is on pay sites. There's one big newspaper archive that's for free, and it's a pain in the arse to work with. I'm sure the provider thinks he's a good samaritan, but thanks to him nobody will touch the area that he does with a ten-foot pole because the market is covered, hence it's pretty much lost to serious research. Well done, asshole!!

 

I hate the "cheap is good" mentality. Nothing has ever come from cheap, except greed.

Free advice ?

[Jim Thurman]

Many great comments here, that I greatly agree with, in fact far too many to single out, but...

 

Which seems to me to be the main problem. Much of the internet is for free, and like everything which is cheap it is pretty much worthless. Nobody wants to work for free, so free content means those who provide it don't take pride in their work, and standards fall. You can see this everywhere in the modern world, products are getting cheaper day by day, and the quality suffers. Try buying good food these days, it's almost impossible!

 

Most of the time I spend on the internet is on pay sites. There's one big newspaper archive that's for free, and it's a pain in the arse to work with. I'm sure the provider thinks he's a good samaritan, but thanks to him nobody will touch the area that he does with a ten-foot pole because the market is covered, hence it's pretty much lost to serious research. Well done, asshole!!

 

I hate the "cheap is good" mentality. Nothing has ever come from cheap, except greed.

 

By any chance, are you referring to the Old Fulton website?  Yes, a total hash, but some normally pay services seem almost as bad.

 

About doing things for free.  A might harsh, eh?  Many simply do it out of love of the sport and desire to get it right and share with fellow enthusiasts.

 

Michael, erm, generally all you've done has been for free hasn't it?

Edited by Jim Thurman, 05 January 2015 - 04:13.

[Charlieman]

Nobody wants to work for free, so free content means those who provide it don't take pride in their work, and standards fall.

I've enjoyed Michael's comments on this thread, even those with which I disagree. But I think this one is plain wrong.

 

People who write web sites or articles for personal enjoyment typically do so to the best of their ability. If the article isn't very good, it indicates that the writer isn't a good writer or fails to understand the topic. It doesn't signify that the author isn't bothered about facts. There are exceptions: search bait publishers create articles explicitly to generate hits, and the writers are more concerned about density of buzz words than elucidation.

 

Most writers and researchers work for free. I looked around the other day to see if anyone had written a comprehensive history of Alta. I couldn't find one, so I presume that a book which requires (say) two years of full time research can't find an author and publisher because it is uneconomical. If one turns up, the author's income from sales will amount to one-sixtieth of the UK hourly wage. The fee, based on reputation, for assessing an Alta on behalf of a seller might feed the family for a few weeks.

 

Few owners' clubs have the funds to pay for a professional historian. Almost all publish journals -- with marque histories, racing reports, technical reviews -- but older club magazines are often treated as primary sources for historical data. Stuff written by amateurs for free, not intended for analysis in future decades, becomes a primary source. Annotations and corrections written in pencil in racing programmes allow us to determine, correctly or incorrectly, whether Jo Soap started in a Cooper rather than a Brabham in a particular race.

 

In other threads, we've discussed who wrote race reports for Autosport and Motoring News. Race reports are treated as primary sources, but it seems that most were provided by "unqualified" people, rather than journalists or historians or engineers.

[arttidesco]

As a basic policy to any research it is always best to get more than one opinion, think of a fact like a traffic accident between two vehicles, there are the two opinions of the drivers as to what happened and then there may be further opinions from independent witnesses. Caveat Emptor always applies what ever the source.

Edited by arttidesco, 05 January 2015 - 19:41.

[Michael Ferner]

Michael, erm, generally all you've done has been for free hasn't it?

 

Means, you haven't yet paid, Jim?   Then, pronto, put the cheque in the mail!!

 

 

Of course, my comments have been over the top (thanks for reminding  ), albeit on purpose. What's a good rant without exaggeration?

Edited by Michael Ferner, 05 January 2015 - 19:48.

[Charlieman]

As a basic policy to any research it is always best to get more than one opinion, think of a fact like a traffic accident between two vehicles, there are the two opinions of the drivers as to what happened and then there may be further opinions from independent witnesses. Caveat Emptor always applies what ever the source.

Naah, caveat emptor does not apply to research. "Buy it if you like" or "that's what it is" are fair vernacular interpretations for "let the buyer beware". 

 

Witness evidence versus cameras delivers more than one opinion. If the camera observes that the man ran left and three witnesses tell you that he ran right, how would you interpret it Sherldesco?

[D-Type]

Has anybody tried to correct a blatantly wrong item on Wikipedia?  

I came across a situation where a politically motivated 'fact' had been added to a Wikipedia headline which mere mortals cannot change.  I contacted them pointing out it is a blatant lie and received the reply that they would not correct it as the 'fact' was corroborated by several on-line sources.

[Vitesse2]

Witness evidence versus cameras delivers more than one opinion.

In the course of my never-ending quest to finally solve the mysteries of the 1939 Swiss GP, I have read about fifteen 'eye-witness' press reports from Switzerland, Britain, Germany, France and italy. Plus several accounts in various books in English, French and German. None of them mentions Müller's push-start in the final, which is clearly visible in at least two photographs!

[Charlieman]

In the course of my never-ending quest to finally solve the mysteries of the 1939 Swiss GP, I have read about fifteen 'eye-witness' press reports from Switzerland, Britain, Germany, France and italy. Plus several accounts in various books in English, French and German. None of them mentions Müller's push-start in the final, which is clearly visible in at least two photographs!

Publish your interpretation, using old photos, and don't give a toss about copyright. This is academic study?

 

When you are right, or vaguely correct, you can have a go at anything. 

 

As long as it is not hurtful.