The Web has made us lazy researchers

Would you recognize Elyse Luray if you saw her in town this weekend?

Would you know who she was? Would you know why her face or the rasp of her voice already seem familiar?

If you needed to pick her up at the airport, chances are you'd type her name into a search engine to find out who she was. You could run a Google Image search to see pictures.

Maybe, with enough online sleuthing, you would learn that Luray will be one of two celebrity auctioneers at the Chesapeake Bay Wine Classic on Saturday in Virginia Beach and that her next book is about wines that cost less than $20.

You could track down her phone number or talk to her in person, but that might be too much to ask. So let me save you some trouble.

Luray is an appraiser and historian who has worked at Christie's and specialized in pop culture. She is perhaps best known for her job on the PBS television series "History Detectives."

On the show, viewers call in and say they believe their longtime family heirloom may be a piece of the Apollo spacecraft or a ringlet of hair from Tad Lincoln or some other incredibly interesting, mildly inconsequential piece of history.

The show starts with some basic questions: Is the family history true? Is the piece authentic? Does a relic that possesses so much family meaning actually mean anything to anyone else?

Then researchers like Luray take it from there. Along the way, as they narrate what they've discovered, they ask another series of questions.

Did Buffalo Bill Cody really use this model of gun? Are these yellowed date books really from a president's collection? Each time, they begin their research at a computer. At that point, I start snidely making asides for every question posed.

"Check Google!" I shout at the TV sarcastically.

But the reason the detectives are in front of a computer monitor, Luray said last week, is that "Google is the best place to start."

Many of our modern puzzles can be solved by a search engine. The dimensions of a queen-size mattress, the symptoms for ear infections, the career statistics for Anthony Razor Shines.

What's interesting about the show is that the Google searches usually are a bust. The detectives rarely find what they're looking for online, and there's good reason for that. First, it would make for television more torturous than pay-per-view previews, and second, what they're looking for often doesn't exist in digital formats.

There is something quaint and satisfying about finding information that's not available via iPhone.

Luray and the show's other detectives go to libraries and dig through census records. They consult experts and run forensic experiments.

The whole time they're working the case, we're reminded, as we sit on the couch with our fingers on the INFO button, that the web has made us lazy when it comes to hard-to-find information. It's easier than ever to shrug and say, "I dunno."

But the purpose of "History Detectives," believe it or not, is the opposite.

Research adds value. Rifling through files creates a sense of accomplishment in unearthing what was previously unknown.

Not every item needs a detective to uncover its story; until 10 years ago, we could find it ourselves.

Mike Gruss, (757) 446-2277, mike.gruss@pilotonline.com