Research over the next century: impact of technology.

The Information Age has made an incomprehensible quantity of information available to us, including information related to occupational therapy. Fortunately, information searching systems have advanced substantially. We now are capable of performing extensive literature reviews from our desk, customizing and automating reference searches to our individual interests, searching literally around the world with Web search engines, and using e-mail extensively for communications among researchers. These capabilities have created an environment of prolific information exchange. This expansion will not stop. In the future, we will see the quantity of research information expand dramatically. To make the information accessible, search engines will become even more user friendly, and inquiries will become increasingly adept at crossing more and more domains of information. We are already beginning to see three types of advanced search software. First is the development of the integrated search engine. For example, Sherlock II from Apple Computer brings hard drive, server, and Web searching all under one search interface. A second technology advance emerges from the development of expert artificial intelligence search systems. Askjeeves.com already demonstrates a successful attempt at using free text English questions to formulate searches—just type in your question and the computer will mount a Web search. Lastly, our searches will become customized and automatically delivered to our desks when we need it. We can already see this service with Amazon.com or Yahoo. For example, after an initial search with Amazon.com, the Amazon.com search engine creates of profile of you in order to provide updated lists of titles and items that you will be interested in seeing at your next visit. The Community of Science (http://www.cos.com) provides an automatic search delivery service for researchers.