Electronic reference works are exploiting the unique capabilities of the digital medium and educators are incorporating these innovations into curriculum material. The atlas, for example, has its internet counterpart in: MapQuest, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps and others. These electronic data sets are being used as material for student projects like Jimmy Palmer’s gCensus, which is constructed from Google Maps and data extracted from the 2000 United States Census. Of the project, Palmer says:

I recently completed my Masters of Science in Computer Science at The University of Mississippi. One of the classes I took during my last semester was a course concerned with processing large quantities of data. Specifically, the course focused on scientific data collected in such fields as fluid dynamics, physics, and weather. The class was small, about a dozen people, and this allowed the class to be somewhat informal in nature. We read two or three published research papers per week and discussed the papers in round table discussions during class meetings.
One of the assignments we were given was open-ended. The assignment was to “do something interesting with a large data set”. I looked around at possible datasets and came across the census data. At approximately ten gigabytes, I thought it qualified as a large data. At the same time, spring 2005, Google had just released its map technology. I thought the two were a perfect match and gCensus is the result.

As we consider the ways in which textbooks are evolving in the digital medium, we must also look at how electronic reference material is created, archived, and accessed. Changes in the use and nature of reference works may engender changes in teaching methods and tools.