Do you remember when writing a school paper meant spending a day at the library, making notes with pen and paper. As a kid, my Saturdays were often spent at the library, researching, writing and being quiet. At home, drafts, rewrites and citations concluded the day. Hmm.

This was long before we had the net. I must admit to a certain nostalgia, remembering the marble steps leading to the second floor of the downtown San Francisco library and the beautiful polished oak cabinets filled with paper index cards, organized in Dewey decimal format. The bad news was that it surely did take a lot of time.

Today, the net is the most gigantic library on the planet and entirely accessible from home. You can conduct extensive research at any time of the day or night. If you're an avid researcher, your browser will not accommodate the number of bookmarks you'll need to mark your favorite sites. However, this doesn't mean you cannot assemble your own customized and, best of all, free online library with a small investment of your time.

Let's say your passion is antiques. You may now spend hours sifting through pages of search engine links to find out what your latest flea market find is and what it's worth. Take a different approach. Instead of spending those hours to locate one specific item, begin by developing your free online library of antique resources.

Search engines are key. While your favorite search engine provides a mix of generalized results, some of which are informational or commercial, there are specialized search engines with databases that pertain to specific categories of information or subject matter. Type 'search engines antiques' and hit enter. These results are the starting point for your free online library. Read through the synopsis of each link and follow those most pertinent to your interests. First, go through the first page of results to determine which search engines you like best.

Inspect the various sites each of these search engines turns up, for quality of information that you can use. Be choosy. You could, after all, end up with millions of entries. Pick the best search engines and sites for your purpose.

Create an HTML document in your word processor and copy and paste the url of the site into your document. To make your personal free online library user-friendly – to you – create categories of information on antiques and paste each url into your document accordingly. For example, your categories might include 18th century European, 17th century French, antique shows, appraisers and so on. In HTML format, each link is clickable. No more cutting and pasting.

After you've gone through one page of search engines, end your session for the day. Review your url's and categories to see how you might refine your new free online library contents. Believe me, it won't be long before you're an expert. The net rocks.