I was part of a class team looking at the player that IU has developed to allow internet access to their vast music library. The online library itself (only available on campus) was a feat in and of itself for the senior students I observed who could still remember the old days when music was only available on CD and waiting lists formed for the few CDs that were required listening for music students!

In watching how these students did their work (a HUGE benefit of CI) we found something else. A large number of students were using Amazon, rather than the library search service, to research and find music. For older students looking for variations of a piece they were to perform, they could quickly find all of the commercially available renditions of a particular piece (e.g. Wagner Die Walkure). Then they would use the digital library search to see if those renditions were available on campus.

Of course, it made me realize how often I have come to rely on "non-traditional" sources to find things I need for research. Who has not looked on Amazon to find the second author of an obscure book or look for related titles? It is not even a conscious change in behavior, which I believe makes it even more powerful. The revolution (a.k.a. the dot-com boom) might be over but the evolution of research and learning is continuing as these services increasingly seep into our everyday activities in unintended ways. Google's Print service should extend this capability and make such instant research even more ubiquitous.

Of course, the commercial nature of these services is a concern for educators but this is a rant for another entry…