Clinton, all things are relative, and on a universal scale, all things are relatively ephemeral. The internet is a repository of human knowledge. If the information disappears of course it is ephemeral, just as words on paper are ephemeral if you put a match to them, or words carved in tablets of stone are ephemeral if the stone is ground to dust.

The internet has changed the world already, my job as a librarian is unrecognisable compared to what it was 20 years ago. I can now theoretically provide a reference service in a local branch library the size of a broom cupboard comparable to that which would only have been available in a big central reference library a few years ago.

Obscure folk music queries I am confronted with which previously I simply wouldn't have been able to answer, I can know satisfy in minutes by searching the DT or Forum. I have never yet needed to start a thread to find the answer to such an enquiry. The information has always been somewhere on the Mudcat, on occasions Clinton, I have even found the answer in one of your ephemeral postings.