Originally appeared in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press

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As Memorial Day brings the curtain down on the school year, kids across this great nation stream out of their classrooms and into the sunshine. Teachers, too, look forward to a break from the academic routine.

But the newest group to heave a sigh of relief that school is out are America's online experts.

An online expert is anyone with an e-mail account, who someone else regards as an expert on some topic. It could be an author, a celebrity, a professor, an office-holder, an entrepreneur, or an officer in an organization. But the expert knows something, and somehow he or she was awarded an uncoveted honor -- making the list of America's homework resources.

I say all this because -- imagine me blushing here and poking my dimple with my finger -- I made the list. The various search engines and indexes have decided I am a renowned authority on the Internet (because of this column), on work teams (because of a book I cowrote), and future shock (because I once listened to Alvin Toffler for 60 minutes, and wrote a little report on him).

Since last Labor Day, I have been subjected to a steady stream of requests for information from scholars at various levels. The youngest, I would guess, was in the fifth grade, but the stream also included high school, college, and postgraduate candidates. I started keeping track of these requests in January, and have got 58 requests for information since then.

It's easy to get people's e-mail addresses. You track them down using any of the e-mail seach engines and Internet and phone books. All they have to do is tell an engine like Four11 (http://www.four11.com/) or Bigfoot (http://www.bigfoot.com/) the expert's first and last name. If the expert (usually a noncelebrity like myself) is dumb enough to use his own name, he's on the list for good.

Now, there is nothing wrong with requesting information. It is a valuable and valid way to learn. And many of these requests are respectful, asking a single, specific question relevant to my expertise. I answer these questions as best I can.

But many are really school spam. A kid has to write a report, and rather than read something, he or she decides to write to a dozen or so experts and ask them to take a half hour to fill out his 10-point questionnaire, the questions on which seem pulled from thin air -- vague and pointless.

Some requests, you wonder why people think you might know the answer. I have been asked to suggest a poem for a wedding ceremony. ("The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere"?) I have been asked my opinions on subsections of ISO-9001. (Say what?) I have been asked over 200 times for Mr. Toffler's e-mail address. (Don't know it).

Friends, this is an educational issue comparable to the controversy over whether kids should use pocket calculators to do math problems. It's great for students that, if you know someone's address, you can stop them on the virtual street and ask them a question. That democratization turns the World Wide Web into a village, and its experts into mentors to the young.

But should kids, instead of reading, be encouraged to tap into outside experts to fill up those 750-word reports?

Here's a sample from a big kid, a British doctoral candidate, addressed simply "To: All," with a list for 23 recipients, myself among them:

> I am writing my dissertation about mission/vision and

> corporate culture. I have still alot of questions [sic] and that is

> why I did a search on the internet. During the search I found

> your e-mail address and I hope you will answer these questions

> below. Or perhaps you know other people who might be

> interested and/or able to answer all these questions.

Now, this is the lousiest way I can imagine to write a doctoral dissertation: begging strangers for sound-bites. If a writer had something definitive to say on a topic, wouldn't it already be written down? But finding that would mean cracking a book, and that approach, my dear, is going the way of the megatherium. (http://www.13.cyberhost.net/paleoboo/cloning.htm)

How do you know your experts are really experts? Or even who they say they are? You may have an address called MarilynManson@aol.com, but that may not actually be Marilyn reading your mail and offering his opinions about the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. It could be -- somebody else.

Worst, whatever results you obtain from this sort of round robin violates the first rule of research -- verifiability. How can another scholar duplicate your private correspondence to be sure it actually occurred?

Like anyone cares about verifiability.

Note to scholars: If you hail an expert on the Net, and you discover that the e-mail address is no longer good, you should know what has happened. The expert in question has got tired of being at the beck and call of everyone with a modem, an assignment, and a preference for having someone else do his or her homework -- and gone underground.

America's Best-Loved Technology Writer(TM), Michael Finley has a free gift for visitors to http://mfinley.com.