Musing Mondays (Feb.15)

((Musing Mondays are hosted by Rebecca!))

This week, Rebecca asks:

Do you keep reference books on your shelves at home? What’s your first port of call when you need information – the internet or a book?

I do keep reference books at home — mostly the “…for Dummies” series books, and the “Complete Idiot’s Guide” ones. LOL.

         

I also have my Official Scrabble Dictionaries, and a couple of how-to books about running, and how-to books on the craft of Writing, etc. Actually, you can just click HERE if you want a complete list of what I’ve tagged as “reference” books in my personal library, ’cause the list will get pretty long if I keep going.

Funny thing is, even though I have all of these supposed “reference” books, I still tend to go first to the Internet if I want to research something, or look something up. Not always, mind you — sometimes I’ll go to one of my books, if I know that it has specifically what I’m looking for — but most of the time the Internet is where I’ll go, first.

I think this is because the ‘reference’ books I have in my collection are pretty specific — they’re either about writing, running, nutrition/health, running a business, home design, or Ancient Egypt. So, they don’t often help if I’m looking for information about something else. The writing ones have come in handy a couple of times, when I’ve been helping my kids with their homework. And, the Ancient Egypt ones were handy when my son did a project on that country.

Edited to add: One of the other MM respondents ~ Dana ~ asked (inspired by this week’s question): “If you use the Internet to look stuff up, do you stick to just one search engine, or use several?” … My Answer: I mainly use Google, but have been known to try others if Google isn’t helping.