Although unrelated to GIS specifically, this post (simply entitled Information) that I came across on the evolution of how we hunt for information resonated. I guess I can identify with the author, particularly when he describes ways I used to hunt and gather for information (probably showing my age). Check out this excerpt on library card catalogs:

“So if you were researching something, you’d have to pull out a rack in the card catalog according to the alphabetized subject and flip through the cards. If you got lucky, the title of a book or a brief description would point you in the right direction. Then you had to actually find the book, skim through it, and hope that you’d find some information.

I know what you’re thinking about now: you’ve got to be freaking kidding me.“

Obviously we deal with information in a very different way today, although with all the ready access to information (although not always data, especially in Canada), one not only hunts for information, but synthesizes and combines information in ways that are sometimes beyond me, into new forms (mashups for example). To the future!