From a prof:

Jonah-
The idea that ‘if something isn’t on the web it doesn’t exist’ really is pervasive among college students. Students have access to a number of searchable databases for the scientific literature and I can usually tell which database was used to research a paper because there will be no references prior to the earliest date in the database. It’s as if there were no scientific studies worth reviewing prior to 1995 or 1987….
Curmudgeonly yours,