Not just seek, but really find.
Just when did the leap from hoping to find something, from wanting to discover what just might be there, to actually expecting that what we want to find really is there, take place? When I used to teach introduction to the internet classes, when my students were first introduced to the web, many of my students assumed that anything and everything they might want was truly available there. Some expected that the entire texts of all the books they might want to read would be online. Others assumed that the web was a vast encyclopedia with extensive information on whatever topic they might choose to explore. Considering that I used to enjoy showing a cute site that let you "order" a pizza and have it show up on the screen with the the desired trimmings, perhaps some of them even thought that actual physical objects could be accessed via the web. Needless to say, the web couldn't fulfill these expectations, and quite a few students (mostly teachers themselves) seemed to take it as a personal affront that the particular information they sought wasn't available. "If it's not there, then what's the internet good for?" they'd ask.
Search engines of the past were limited in comparison to those of today, but frankly, they were pretty capable back then as well. Eight years ago Richard Seltzer, wrote about The Alta Vista Revolution with the fervor of a true believer. The ability to search the full text of a web page, he claimed, was changing the nature of our use of the web. He was, of course, right. And yet what he wrote about then seems so outdated today. Perhaps we've reached the stage where we really do expect to find everything.
Go to: I search, therefore I am?