Thoughts on 3-ring binders, plastic paper protectors, and rolling briefcases

If you get to the FamilySearch Family History Library just before it opens, rain or shine, you will see legions of people standing outside the door, each of them pulling a heavy rolling briefcase or suitcase. They are coming to do research in the library, and they bring with them years of work on paper. Many of them have 3-ring binders with their years of document copies and notes in plastic paper protectors. 

I feel out of place standing there with nothing but a laptop computer in a light case and my iPhone in my pocket. But then reality sets in. I have the world's records and world's libraries in my pocket. I am carrying the 36+ million books on Archive.org and billions of records including almost every record I have found about thousands of my ancestors and relatives and all that is on my iPhone. I bring the computer so I can type rather than use the tiny keyboard on my phone. 

There is a sense of accomplishment and security in paper records, but they are really paper walls, keeping us from seeing the vast array of information just waiting for the touch of a keyboard. If I need to look at a book, I can pull out my camera and take digital copies of the pages I need for reference, but with the advent of the 36+ million books on Archive.org, looking at paper copies is quickly becoming both inconvenient and unnecessary. I also know that if Archive.org does not have the book, one of the thousands of other digital libraries, including the FamilySearch.org Books, will probably provide exactly what I need. 

If I do go into the library, I will find that the books are returning but they vie for space with ranks of computers, most with double monitors so that even bringing my laptop computer to the library has become a shadow of the past. 

By chance, if one of the paper and protector people ask me a question, I quickly become uncomfortable because they have to work with their mammoth binders and try to read the photocopies through the plastic. Paper tries my patience. I have probably made hundreds of searches today and I can't imagine how long it would take me to do the same thing with paper copies. 

Even though I try to teach others how to be free from the thralls of paper research, I never seem to make much headway. Every week as I go to the BYU Family History Library, I see people with wheeled cases spreading out their work in front of double monitors in a library full of machines dedicated to digitizing every kind of media from paper to film. 

Of course, over time, the younger generation will come with their laptops and smartphones but even as I grow older, I am still waiting to see the change.