I was looking for the source of a satirical quote I’ve read years ago and, of course, I tried Google as first tool, but with no results. The only option would have been to go back in my garage, open the boxes where I stored the old newspapers, and try to find the line I need.
This lead me to an obvious but never considered conclusion: if something is “just” on paper, is going to be forgotten because “average joe” (including me) doesn’t make the effort to go over the “search” button push, looking for sources not available online.
True, Google did launch the digital library initiative, the Gutenberg Project is releasing the ebook version of the public domain literature classics and there are similar activities elsewhere, but there will always be an off-line knowledge that people don’t care to look for because it is offline.
The final word(s): our memory goes back in the past as deep as a search engine can.