In this city, the Toronto Reference Library is supposed to be the source of all sources. Every book and every publication imaginable, from back copies of the Canadian Mining Journal to that obscure book on the art of basket weaving, is stored in its endless stacks. If it's on paper, it's here.

At least, theoretically. On a recent trip to the reference library, I discovered that this claim is becoming less and less true. I was on a quest to find back issues of newspapers from across the country, and in some cases, from the U.S. and Europe, for a story I was working on. In particular, I wanted to look more at images and layout, less at text. I was able to get my hands on a number of papers but there were many holes in my search: some papers would be missing key dates, other papers weren't available at all. "You should try the Internet," suggested a librarian. "The databases have everything. We're trying to phase out physical papers so we can move towards electronic archives."

Makes sense. We are living in a technological age after all. But as much as I love databases... no, actually - they don't have everything. The articles are all there, but I have yet to come across a database that was able to show me what an actual newspaper page looked like. But art direction, while sometimes overlooked in journalism circles, is just as important to telling a story as words are.

Proquest has no way of showing me what photo was used on, say, the cover of the Globe and Mail last year, its size, or its placement on the page, all of which are factors that, when combined together, makes a statement about the story and its significance.

No, databases are cold and black-and-white, and definitely not flip-friendly (I want to be able to scan a page quickly, and flip through my paper for what I want to read, dammit! Let me flip!)

Even though I love my Internet (I just had a nervous breakdown two hours ago when I thought I would be Internet-less for two days - thank you, Sympatico), I'm afraid that in a fistfight against pen and paper (or, in this case, ink and newsprint), the Internet would still lose. So the library should really reconsider giving up on its centuries-old staple so hastily. Because it's true what they say - ain't nothin' like the real thing.