Search engine insights

On the shelf above my desk sits the two-volume Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Each volume measures 12x9x3 inches and is more than 2,000 pages. It’s a micrographically reproduced version of the full 13-volume set that libraries hold. The compact OED comes in a case with a rectangular magnifying glass stored in a little drawer, so that its tiny text is more than a variegated grey blur.

The first edition was meticulously compiled from 1857 to 1928 by teams of scholars and readers around the world, searching ancient and modern texts for the first usages and variants of every English word. (For the story of the OED and a true murder mystery, read The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester.)

The OED is a symbol of how expertise was once gained. It involved rows of card catalogues and multi-volume reference indices, directing the searcher to vast stacks of books, journals, and papers. It was here that the claims of any argument about a word or concept for example, had to be substantiated.

When one reads through the four pages of the OED entries on “love,” there is a sense of drawing water from a deep well. There is an exhilaration that comes with the draft.

On my lap sits a computer measuring 11x9x1 inches. Its hard drive could swallow the entire OED as easily as Pharaoh’s seven skinny cows swallowed his fat ones.

My computer is miraculously connected to enormous data banks and innumerable websites, accessed by powerful search engines. Its power goes far beyond English etymology. Whatever I need – some facts to prove my point, Ancient Near Eastern background information, pictures for a power point slide, biblical word studies – is at my fingertips. In fact, if I need a quick sermon, I have access within seconds to thousands on any topic, written by preachers both living and dead.

Search engine research also gives one a sense of awe. There’s raw power in the laissez-faire world of the internet. Contributors from every walk of life pour their insights and comments onto the open market. A search for “King Herod” brings 2.4 million hits. The best hits rival the accuracy and depth of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The worst? Not worth the click of a mouse.

Periodically, I still pull a volume of the OED off the shelf. With one eye closed, I peer through the magnifying glass at an entry. As a matter of course, however, it’s my laptop that does the task the OED and reference libraries once did.

Realistically, my beloved two-volume OED is nearly obsolete. Why use it when instant expertise is just a keystroke away?

But is it? Is anyone with enough computer skills to play Nintendo and navigate a search engine now an expert on all knowledge known to humanity?

Some caution is in order with this newly-found expertise. Real insight is more than an accessible data bank. There is a difference between traditional research and search engine research.

Something magical takes place when I pick up a carefully compiled book or an ancient text and lose myself in its pages. There is a sense that true knowledge does not come easily or quickly; that even the simplest concepts are complex; that acquired knowledge has weight and substance on one hand, and is fragile and intricate on the other.

It’s easy to lose humility when everything known about a subject seems reducible to the narrow field of a computer screen.

But there is another difference between search engine insight and actually reading a text. It’s the difference between reading Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and scanning a summary of its plot and main characters. Both give us the information, but only the former takes us on a journey.

It’s the difference between reading 1 Corinthians 13’s description of love and noting that “agape” is a rare Greek word, most often translated “love,” and used in the New Testament as a noun 116 times, a verb 142 times, and an adjective 62 times. Both give us insight, but only the former paints a picture that inspires us across two millennia.

Search engine research is here to stay, but is not the sum of all knowledge. This is a truism that can easily be lost.

James Toews is pastor at Neighbourhood Church, Nanaimo, B.C.