These days the kids have it so easy. Back in the old days, all you had to do if you wanted to research something was go to the nearest library (usually only a few miles away), look up a few books in the card catalog, and get into reading the parts of them which would yield the information that you were seeking. The process usually only took an hour or two, depending on the level of complexity your research required, and it tended to be extremely accurate and trustworthy. But today many students are studying advance at online by online college degrees courses and internet surf. Of course, nowadays there is an entire generation of young people who have no idea about that tried and true practice.
Whether that is their loss or not is up to the opinions of the individual. After all, you always have the option of going to a library and doing your research “old school,” just as you always have. But in this day and age, it seems a little on the ridiculous side to do something like that. Consider that you can just go to the nearest computer or smart phone, type in your desire bit of information, and have it spit back to you in a matter of fractional seconds.
When a person can just type in their question and have it answered faster than they could go make a sandwich or sip their drink of choice, it really makes you wonder if there is any particular future to any other kind of research. While there will naturally always be books, and by extension places where they are stored and accessible to the classical researcher, they may end up turning into something that’s a lot deeper of a niche than they have ever been before.