The past

In the past, books have always been the go-to point for my school projects. However, his was a simpler time. The projects we were given were broad and required no narrowing down. For example, in one of my favourite grade 12 classes (comparative civilizations), we had to present on some aspect of the civilization we were studying. e.g. agriculture of Egypt, military of Rome, theatre in Japan, etc. The librarians were familiar with these projects and over the years purchased books that would be helpful to the students. The same was true with many other classes. The students never had to leave the library to complete their assignments.

In Univerisity there are way to many individual research projects for this method. The librarians cannot be expected to look for the best books on the huge variety of research being done. When Badke said that journals are better than books as far as finding a narrow topic, I was skeptical but as he explained his opinion I saw the sense behind it.