Treadcrumbs: Connecting Current and Historic Research

Technical Breadcrumbs

When it comes to the STEM fields - Science, Technology, Enginering and Mathematics - and the cutting-edge technical acheivements that emanate from the research in those fields, it may seem likely that there may be a short "shelf-life" on research.  But an assumption that years- or decades-old research would have little or no value to current researchers would be mistaken.

Aside from the obligation on researchers to attribute original ideas, old and new - including ones that have become foundational - there are other reasons why decades old technical literature may be revisited.  Here are some reasons why older technical research may be revisited, reinvigorating current research:

  • Research that "hit a wall" due to technical limitations may have those obstacles removed
  • Research that once applied to a unique field may cross into other, possibly emerging fields
  • Modern indexing efforts of conference, symposia and workshop proceedings at the paper-presentation level makes previously undiscoverable sources shallow web searchable
  • Reference materials published as public-domain open access resources can provide researchers with easy free access to needed data

By tracing citations of the resources publicly available on our Contrails digitization website, direct evidence is provided as to the value in today's current research environment of materials published a half-dozen or more decades ago.  This digital exhibit highlights individual examples as case studies in the value of historical technical research.

Modern usage of the term "breadcrumb" - when not the literal and obvious definition relating to food and cooking - has to do with internet navigation and has become rather ubiquitous.

A breadcrumb or breadcrumb trail is a graphical control element used as a navigational aid in user interfaces and on web pages. It allows users to keep track and maintain awareness of their locations within programs, documents, or websites. The term alludes to the trail of breadcrumbs left by Hansel and Gretel in the German fairy tale.  ("Breadcrumb navigation", 2025)

As the opening paragraph of the Wikipedia entry above indicates, the source of the term "breadcrumb" with regards to internet navigation is the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, by the Brothers Grimm.  In this fable, the two young siblings Hansel and Gretel thwart an initial attempt at child abandonment when Hansel devises a plan to use white pebbles as a trail to allow their return from the depths of the forest in which they were to be left to their own devices.  On the second attempt, the pebbles were not an option for the siblings and the substitution of breadcrumbs proved inadequate when the trail was eaten by birds, leaving them lost in the forest.

Hansul und Gretel, by Carl Offterdinger

Carl Offterdinger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
 

Citations as Breadcrumbs

Librarians teaching information literacy skills to university students often use "breadcrumbs" as a metaphor for the usefulness of cited sources to researchers in following the context of peer-reviewed articles.

In-text citations provide breadcrumbs to your readers, allowing them to trace the origins and path of your arguments through the sources and authors you read and built upon.  (McGovern Library, 2023)

The astute reader will note that breadcrumbs in the form of citations are being left within this prose as well. By citing the source of the information presented, not only is the context of the argument made more apparent, but researchers have a way to track down the source to investigate it on their own, and the author(s) have dutifully assigned attribution to an idea that was not their original creation and by doing so avoided charges of plagiarism.

By failing to cite, you are falsely portraying someone else's ideas as your own; this is considered plagiarism (University of Virginia, Honor Committee, 2025)

Storytime

The menu on the left-hand column will lead the reader to anecdotal examples of decades-old research being employed by today's researchers.  These storylines were discovered in large part through domain searches in the Google Scholar search engine that revealed that materials from our Contrails digitization effort had been cited.  The stories were compiled not by the researchers directly involved nor even researchers in the field but by information professionals generally busy with providing access to scientific literature to their patrons.  Whereas a scientific paper would be authored by a well-versed field expert, these accounts are authored by lay-level "explorers" attempting to digest and recount the relationships between mid-twentieth century technical reports and twenty-first century journal articles. As such, they rely heavily on direct quotes from the experts and are peppered with references - technical breadcrumbs.  We hope these breadcrumbs lead the reader out of the forest and into the daylight - the realization that all scientific research, no matter how old, can be an inspiration and a source for the researchers of tomorrow.  Enjoy!

References

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