Steven Schroeder
Shenzhen University

The sheer volume of material available on the Web can be daunting, but it is a mistake to leap from observations about volume to conclusions about information. It's not so much the quantity of information that has changed as its accessibility and the level of noise within which it is situated. To speak of an information explosion in this context is a bit like the American tourist who expects to make himself understood by increasing the volume of his English. The result is louder, but does it include more information?

The old description of the internet as a massive library with no card catalogue--and no shelves--still holds. The Web has pushed some of the piles behind nice facades, but it hasn't built shelves or shelved books.

In fact, it has complicated the situation by adding a growing clutter of advertising and other commercial traffic. And the piles behind the facades grow and change with such astonishing speed at least in part because browsers glance at "books" selected more or less at random; pull out pages; scribble spontaneous comments; rip out shards of advertising; and throw all these fragments back on the pile where they confront the next browser.

This may be a fire hazard, but it's not a bad thing for a disciplined researcher. Neatly bound books on carefully arrranged shelves carry an air of finality that can restrict vision. The capacity for (almost) infinite recombination may help us see things we would otherwise have missed. And it shines a light on the researcher's responsibility that may not have been so clear before. The researcher has to orderdata and be honest about the process of ordering. A random sample of junk from the library floor is not very helpful without some careful sifting.

This sifting is not the same thing as shelving books. Taking a sample does not diminish the amount of material on the library floor: it's still there for the next browser, who will be confronted with the same challenge to sift and communicate.

Of course, the internet has also been described as an "information superhighway." But this is no highway. It's a noisy city full of disorderly crowds, and you'll enjoy it to its fullest if you plunge in and report back. Simply "cruise" it and you'll learn about as much as you learn of Chicago by passing through on Interstate 94.

As a research tool, the Web is one tool among others. Evaluate sources that you find on the Web with the same critical standards you would apply to material found in a library, collected in an interview, or assembled from fieldwork--and cite those sources just as carefully. Always attend to the location and the credentials (academic or otherwise) of the author(s): unsigned sources, written or electronic, are suspect. That doesn't mean you can't use them, but you should demand to know (as your reader will demand to know) who says? Encyclopedia articles--particularly unsigned ones--are generally not good sources and certainly cannot stand alone.

As a researcher, you're not building a superhighway; you're exploring a territory, getting to know a city, and acquainting your audience with it. A superhighway or a very simple map might get us across the city quickly, but it would not let us know the city. Give us a map good enough to help us get lost on side streets and encounter interesting strangers.