The internet age has brought tremendous access to information.  As kids, many of us were used to the familiar refrain from our parents, "Go look it up."  That meant getting out a dictionary or the Encyclopedia Britannica (volumes of books) to see if we could figure out unique facts about the Tasmanian Devil (my fourth-grade report subject), which is "the world's largest carnivorous marsupial."   Things have changed.

Today, telling someone to look it up means a trip to the computer, and probably Google, Bing, Yahoo or some other search engine.  Maybe it could mean a news service like the New York Times, and of course Westlaw, LexisNexis, or Bloomberg for legal issues. If I needed any evidence things have changed for all of us, I recently asked my nine-year-old son to put the "word book" he got out to help with his homework. He looked at me and asked, "You mean the dictionary?"  Um, yeah.  

Anyway, with all this information at our fingertips, I am regularly amazed how often I could tell people to, "Look it up."  Students regularly ask me questions that they could easily look up themselves, and it happens with colleagues or vendors, too. I have always liked finding the answers to questions, so it usually doesn't bother me much. I like to be the source of information.  But when it's really easy to find — as in "What's the population of  West Virginia?" — it's a little disappointing. 

In a time where people are often looking for an edge to make themselves more valuable to their employer, I suggest that people should be more inclined to look things up.  Try to save questions for times when you really need the help.