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Internet research allows you convenient access to information on nearly any topic without leaving your desk. Even better, many libraries offer access to full-text periodical and newspaper indexes from remote locations; such indexes are among the most useful available online, and we recommend that you focus on them when the convenience of researching from your own computer is important.

The Internet also offers speed—enabling you to track down a news report or a research finding almost instantly, from anywhere in the world. Finally, this research tool puts an immense volume of information at your fingertips. A decade ago, University of California at Berkeley researchers estimated that the World Wide Web contained about 170 trillion bytes of information, which is seventeen times the size of the print collections in the Library of Congress.¹² The size of the Internet continues to expand rapidly.¹³ Kevin Kelly, one of Wired magazine’s founders, estimates that the total number of Web pages now exceeds one trillion.¹⁴ With careful searching online, you may be able to find quality information that simply does not exist in your own library.