Have had several discussions of late with young writers online, who seem to think that a Google search and reading a few things there is enough to build an entire world for their novel.
Most recently, it was a discussion about Medieval times, that was so off-base as to be laughable. Turns out the only research the writer had done was online, complaining that the history books she had access to didn’t give her any information about lifestyle and in particular, information on a woman’s day to day activities. My opinion was that she hadn’t looked hard enough, and that a good reference librarian could help her get more depth to her research.
“Didn’t you even READ the articles I posted?” she asked angrily.
Yes, I read them. Yes, they said what she said they said. But their theories of medieval living were not in agreement with all of the other scads of research that has been done on that era. But I couldn’t point that out to her, she had already closed her mind to anything other than what she’d already decided.
Maybe I am colored a bit by my age (48) and by the fact that I work at a college, but I don’t think anything will ever replace good old fashioned library-based research. Yes, some things can be found online, and that information online may be accurate, but there’s no way to know for sure until you’ve backed up online research with the real thing. Anyone can say anything they want on the Internet, and it gets this “it was in print, it must be true!” sort of tag.
I like Google as much as the next guy, but there has to be more than that if you are trying to build a background for your characters as you write. Libraries are free, and full of great information, as well as having these wonderful people called Reference Librarians who can find information on anything. Get thee to a library! You won’t be sorry you did.
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