technologies

Here in my air conditioned library carrel, using my computer, I notice how many ways the work of a scholar has changed in the last half-century or so because of technology. 

1. I locate information and sources using various on-line tools rather than sitting on the floor flipping through paper indexes or searching through printed bibliographies or letting my fingers do the walking in the card catalog.
2. I still scribble notes on paper and sketch out the contours of a paragraph or essay that way, but the revising is all "block move" and "delete" and typing something new.  The process has some echoes of the palimpsest, but what I have scrapped off the skin is gone and what is left comes out of the printer pristine.
3. I consult with others by phone or in person having flown across the nation rather than by handwritten letters entrusted to the postal service.
4. Though the day is tropical, I keep working as if it were cool and dry.
5. Older, but still significant, electric lights!