We used to have the sum total of human knowledge, or at least a good facsimile of it. Unfortunately, with the Internet as we know it transformed into a handful

We used to have the sum total of human knowledge, or at least a good facsimile of it. Unfortunately, with the Internet as we know it transformed into a handful of walled gardens, finding detailed knowledge is increasingly difficult. Wikipedia is excellent, as usual. But it is an encyclopaedia, not a definitive source of original knowledge, and it remains the case that I can browse my modest (physical) bookshelves and find a book on, say, Russian modern history that will give me far more in-depth information in the first ten pages than I can find online. Same applies for almost any genre, except perhaps fiction. Seven Years In Tibet taught me more about Tibetan geography and culture than any amount of Googling could do. The idea of an infinite knowledge bank is appealing and I think the Internet could have made it - imagine a suite of applications that complement Wikipedia - but commercialism has ruined the utopia, as it is designed to do.