Today, as I was coming  into my office, I spotted an interesting critter in my path. It was a snail. Now I’ve seen snails before but I couldn’t recall seeing one similar to this organism. Hmmm, I thought, in the days before the internet, what would a person have done in order to identify a new or odd specimen? After all, people who lived and worked in the world before the internet became so ubiquitous were still able to discover new information and exchange ideas. Granted, the process wasn’t a rapid as it is today. Before the advent of the World Wide Web, people interested in identifying strange creatures could have:

• reflected upon their own personal experiences with comparable living things,
• made a note of the experience in a journal or diary,
• made a sketch or snapped a photograph using an (old-school, film-based) camera, eventually gotten the image developed, and distributed the image among others, asking, “What the heck is this thing?“
• asked other, well-informed people, “Hey, have you ever seen one of these things? Do you know what this thing is?“
• consulted an encyclopedia,
• gone to a local library and consulted books or periodicals related to the to topic (remember the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature? ) ,
• interviewed a teacher from an elementary, middle, high school, or university who specialized in biology,
• consulted a Cooperative Extension office,
• contacted the United States Department of Agriculture,
• contacted a state-based environmental agency,
• visited a natural science museum,
• talked to a ranger in a nearby park,
• written to or contacted a society of individuals who study, investigate, or otherwise document accounts of such creatures (for example, in my case, the International Gastropod Society)

Clearly, there were a great deal of options open to curious people. All they had to do was

• document what was encountered (i.e., draw a picture, take a photograph, make an entry in a log or journal),
• travel to a place of knowledge and make use of reference materials/resources, and
• contact someone in the know.

These days, curious people can find answers to all kinds of questions with unbelievable rapidity. They can do all of the things listed above and do them in record time. Technology allows practically anyone and every one who is willing to expend a minimum amount of energy the means to accessing an answer. Case in point: my unidentified snail. Here’s how I’ve used technology to seek information regarding the strange snail that literally crossed my path. To get some answers, I:

• snapped a photograph with my digital camera and uploaded the images to my Picasa-enabled, online photo account in a publically accessible folder entitled Snail,
• consulted Wikipedia, reading an entry about snails,
• consulted a search engine (i.e., Google with a query for odd snail georgia ) and got directed to Georgia Family, Agricultural, Consumer & Environmental Sciences (FACES) website where I saw an article that caught my attention: Georgians warned about giant African land snails
• decided to err on the side of caution and called the Georgia Department of Agriculture who politely referred me to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources where I spoke to a kind person who readily agreed to take a look at my photographs of the gallivanting gastropod,
• emailed the photograph to people I know (average folk, students, and teachers),
• considered contacting experts on gastropods,
• documented my experience on my blog, and
• posted a question to Metafilter‘s ever useful AskMeFi section where millions of people can post ideas and comments.

The point is technology has helped me do in minutes what might have previously taken me hours, days, or possibly weeks to accomplish. Do students know how to use technology to answer their questions? Do they have administrators and teachers who allow them or encourage them to do so?

UPDATE: I’ve gotten a few responses to my post over at AskMeFi. One of the generous posters suggested that the organism in question mght be some variety of Olivella. Following up on that suggestion, I plugged the query olivella snail georgia into Google and spotted The Freshwater Snails of Florida: A Manual for Identification. After reading the work (it rocks!) I sent an email to its author, Dr. Fred G. Thompson, the very knowledgable Curator of Non-marine Malacology (the branch of invertebrate zoology which deals with the study of mollusks) at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

UPDATE 2:  Dr. Fred G. Thompson responded! He wants to know if my mystery snail has an operculum ( Latin for “little lid”). It’s a structure that, if present, serves to close the opening of the shell when the snail is withdrawn into the shell. I haven’t seen one on my mystery snail.