I come from the academic world where the right references were (and still are) a big thing. I spent long hours on libraries when gathering information (from when I was a kid to when preparing my PhD in physics).

Today my children, when preparing some presentations for school, rely exclusively on Internet, starting with Wikipedia.

I told them that one needs to cross check sources and whatnot. To this we went together to our library to do this the right way.

What a nightmare. We lost so much time going through books and books to find the averzge size of a horse, or how Versailles was built.

All this was readily available on internet, from zillion sources. From Encyclopedia Britannica and from the blog of John Doe who thought that horses weighted 2000 ks.

So yes, for non-fiction books are not worth it. Once someone learns to be skeptical (which, by the way, the old "books are sanctuaries" approach will not teach) then Internet is the way to go.