What did we ever do before google?

[bigtree]

Last edited Sun Jan 23, 2022, 04:07 PM - Edit history (2)

...someone asked this morning, rhetorically, 'what did we do before Google?'

Beyond the rhetorical, growing up, we had a set of green 'world book' encyclopedias in my home, and another red set of Britannicas which was more detailed, but difficult to read, smaller print, and words that deserved their own page.



Libraries were the next resort, with index cards, Dewy decimals, and eventually microfilm which I thought was the wave of the future. I still remember how smug I felt on the Microfilm reader in the reference room (by appointment), perusing and resurrecting copy from old news articles on microfilm that most people had long forgotten.

I took to traveling to different libraries which had their own volumes of something or the other, and cozying up to the reference room libriarians, including over the phone, in which they were amazingly accomodating looking things up, very much underappreciated, the dears.

Pro tip: Visit the Library of Congress reading room. Aside from one of the most beautiful library rooms in the world, the staff there are the most accommodating anywhere, will bring your book requested to your cubicle. Just a exquisite experience which no reader or writer should miss.




(I'm going to guess this is a niche post for oldies like me, bewildering dullness to most)

[SmartJellyfish]

1. The internet before Google looked like this:

[img][/img]

[fightforfreedom]

95. Lol! I bought my first computer in 1999.

After I logged on I said, Now what? I went to best buy and asked them the say question. They pointed me to the internet yellow pages.

[zeusdogmom]

2. What did we do? We called our friendly reference librarian at the local library!

Working the reference desk was always a busy, busy shift. If you were lucky and your library had enough staff, the shift was no more than 4 hours. My library system was not so lucky especially Saturdays. 9-5 with a half hour for lunch. Bathroom break only if you could sneak one quickly on your way back to the reference desk after helping a patron with a question. There was a row of books lining the desk - our “ready reference collection”. Guides, almanacs, a dictionary, etc. These were used for the never ending phone questions - what is the capital of ….? When was Hoover president? That sort of thing. The in person library patrons lined up at the desk awaiting our assistance - questions both ordinary and anything but. We knew our reference collection well and could usually help our patrons with ease with a stumper now and then to keep the day interesting. Librarians don’t know all the answers but we know where to find it.

There were days I seemed to spend most of my time unjamming the photocopy machine or dealing with a balky microfilm reader.

Libraries are still providing valuable assistance of all kinds to the public. One of our best tax supported institutions.

[bigtree]

18. reference librarians were/are awesome

...my guilty pleasure to get so much for virtually nothing.

Bless y'all.

[niyad]

53. One ofmy favourite movies is, "Desk Set" a Hepburn/Tracy delight. Thought that

would be a fascinating job.

[dweller]

3. YA HOOOOOooooo !!!

Was my search engine of choice, eventually reluctantly to google ..

But I get your gist

✌🏻

[question everything]

4. Go to the local library where, at least in the 90s, one could search newspapers

archives using a dedicated computer.

[zeusdogmom]

5. Before that microfilm

Rolls and rolls of microfilm

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. We also didn't look up as many things,

because it was something of a hassle.

One of the things I love about the Google is that I can quickly look up stuff. It's astonishing how often I don't get a reference I see here, or someone mentions someone I haven't heard of. A quick Google and I'm marginally less ignorant.

I still miss the old card catalogues, because going through them it was possible to stumble across something else that's interesting. That sort of thing doesn't take place as readily with an internet search.

[bigtree]

17. I was getting really good at the card catalogue

...I could click those things backward and forward like no one else.

They're only as good as the library they're in, tho.

[zeusdogmom]

54. That is true

A big block of titles filed under first word The is not overly helpful.

True story - one of the staff was filing under The as the first word of a title. Even worse no one was checking her filing. 😬. I was not sad to see the card catalog go away.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

75. That's both sad and horrifying.

And it made that card catalogue a lot less useful.

[AllaN01Bear]

31. i suedto browse the stacks . i found a lot of good ones like that .

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

77. I likewise browsed the stacks.

I spent many a happy hour in my youth in libraries.

[Demovictory9]

84. going to movies... we'd stop at a telephone booth, look up number of movie theater

and listen to times of each movie. Wasn't a hassle back then, now couldn't imagine doing that.

[treestar]

92. +1

And there were things we tried to look up, but could not find anything.

[Piasladic]

7. the library is gorgeous, of course

What with the weather and all now, I just wonder how they keep it warm without a small state budget dedicated to that.

[highplainsdem]

8. Called librarians if it was a very simple question, or spent hours and hours at libraries.

And used home reference works. Mine included the Oxford English Dictionary (two-volume set with magnifying glass), Van Nostrand's science encyclopedia, a couple of medical encyclopedias in addition to books on health foods, books of quotations, etc.

But libraries, especially university libraries, could be a delight. Occasionally ran across some rare old books in the stacks that I'd turn over to the librarians to keep in a safer collection. Was allowed to hold and look at a First Folio of Shakespeare once. That was a treat.

[bigtree]

16. libraries are a delight

...a rare gift in a grifty world of misinformation, self interest, and profiteering off of access to info.

I like old bookstores, hunger for hidden literary treasures, scouting books at fleas and estate sales. I think I treasure the ones I hold the best, value the ones I've read the same.

[Jeebo]

9. Encyclopedia Brittanica.

I have a set purchased in 1985, at what was then, to me, considerable cost.

I still have those encyclopedias; what do y'all think I should do with them?

Here's one important difference between those encyclopedias and Google: You can accept what you read in those encyclopedias as the God's-honest truth. What you read in Googled information, though, is somewhat less reliable. You have to be careful about what you find there. You have to consider the source. That's one of the HUGE problems we face nowadays; far too many people are living their lives according to what Thom Hartmann calls "the University of Google" and that's dangerous. I often think of the Internet as a giant rumor mill.

My encyclopedias are in storage now, not easily accessible. Maybe I should haul them back to my house and use them as a sort of verification for Google searches. On subjects that go back to 1985 and before, of course.

-- Ron

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

78. I vote for bringing those encyclopedias back to your house.

Not only to use as verification for Google searches, but for the sheer joy of having them. I'll also suggest you occasionally pull out a volume and simply start reading.

[BlueSpot]

10. Sometimes none of that worked

Didn't you ever get one snippet of a song lyric stuck in your head all day and then you couldn't sleep that night because it kept replaying over and over on an endless loop and you just couldn't figure out what song it was from? That happened to me all the time.

Even if for no other reason, I will treasure Google for solving that problem!

[bigtree]

11. you know what?

...song questions are timelessly good banter for your local radio jock or DJ who will almost always pick up the phone for a shout out.

We had a local progressive radio station, WHFS, just down the street, and you could go in any day a find a personality to talk to like Cerphe, Damien, or Weasel - maybe even share a bowl in the elevator.

(I wrote down the top ten from Casey Kasem every week.)

But I digress...

[AllaN01Bear]

34. i found a song that had been stuck in replay in my earworm player . i keyed

in some of the lyircs and bingo. found it . a cartoon from the 60s called the amaZing 3 from japan. kept bugging me and bugging me.

[Ron Obvious]

12. We were OK with not knowing

And we also made unexpected discoveries about things we weren't looking for when trying to find the answer to our original question in an encyclopedia.

I think it was a happier time, but that's probably me getting old.

[bigtree]

13. there are mysteries and secrets that lay hidden in libraries

...was researching the impact of development on species habitat, esp. deer, and came upon one sentence in one state-specific reference book which explained that deer were almost extinct in Maryland due to wild dogs, but recovered with development and the 'edge' habitat that resulted from the razing of forests.

Mysteries and secrets.

[Piasladic]

15. Librarians know everything about anything

and if they don't, they know how to find out.

Unfortunately, they tend to be really looooooooooooong-winded. I like the librarian we have now, but she goes on about her plantar fasciitis and cats. She's better than the old one who would go on about copywrite issues...

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

76. "We were OK with not knowing"

That's really it. Back before the internet I always had a decent dictionary or two around, and I frequently looked up words. We also had World Book Encyclopedia when I was a kid, and later on, when I had young children of my own we purchased a set, as well as an Encyclopedia Britannica. I often looked up things, and both as a kid and as an adult would sometimes pull out a volume and simply read for a while. A down side of the internet is that I suspect younger people never do anything like that these days.

Also, we never imagined that being able to research anything and everything would ever be this easy.

[Maeve]

14. I asked my Dad

Biggest shock of my life came the first time he said "I don't know"...

Encyclopedias, world almanacs, Guinness book...

[LeftInTX]

55. My trusty World Almanac was always at my side!

I almost forgot all about World Almanac!
Need a quick bio on a US President? Right there..
Need facts about this and that...pretty much there..
They sure crammed alot into it.

I believe they even had a list of all towns with a population over 2500 and a zip code list etc.

[lame54]

19. Dirty magazines

[AllaN01Bear]

36. tee hee.

[ironflange]

71. Porn in the woods

[keithbvadu2]

20. In the 50s and 60s, we bought a set of very basic encyclopedias

In the 50s and 60s, we bought a set of very basic encyclopedias at the grocery store , $1 a book per week.

[Staph]

21. There is a charming, Tracy and Hepburn film called Desk Set (1957).

Katharine Hepburn is the head of a research department for a large television network, and Spencer Tracy is the computer expert brought to determine where a computer can be used at the network to improve employee efficiency. As expected, hijinks ensue.

I can't find the right clips online, but the film really highlights the pre-Google capabilities of a trained researcher.

For instance, in her first meeting with Tracy, Hepburn has this speech:

Bunny Watson: I did a little research on you. You were born in Columbus, Ohio on May the 22nd. That makes you a Gemini. You're a graduate of M.I.T. With a PhD in Science. You're a Phi Beta Kappa, although you don't wear your key, which means either that you're modest or that you lost it. You spent World War II in Greenland working on something so top secret that even I couldn't find out about it. You're one of the leading exponents of the electronic brain in this country and the inventor and patent holder of an electronic brain machine called EMRAC: the Electromagnetic Memory and Research Arithmetical Calculator. That's all I found out so far, but I only had half an hour.

There's a great scene at the climax, when EMRAC is supposed to answer a question about Corfu, but Miss Warriner, the computer tech, misspells it as curfew.

Richard Sumner: [watching the computer result on "Corfu", which is mistaken as "curfew"] What the devil is this?

Bunny Watson: [also having a look] It's the poem, "Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight." Isn't that nice?

Bunny Watson: [reciting dramatically] "Cromwell will not come till sunset, and her lips grew strangely white... as she breathed the husky whisper, curfew must not a-ring tonight."

Miss Warriner: [while Bunny goes on] Mr. Sumner, what can I do?

Richard Sumner: Nothing. You know you can't interrupt her...

[the computer]

Richard Sumner: ...in the middle of a sequence.

Miss Warriner: Yes, but, Mr. Sumner...

Richard Sumner: Quiet! Just listen.

Bunny Watson: "She had listened while the judges read, without a tear or sigh, at the ringing of the curfew, Basil Underwood must die."

Richard Sumner: Uh, how long does this go on?

Bunny Watson: That old poem has about 80 stanzas to it.

Richard Sumner: Where are we now?

Bunny Watson: "She has reached the topmost ladder. O'er her hangs the great dark bell, awful is the gloom beneath her like the pathway down to hell. Lo, the ponderous tongue is swinging. 'Tis the hour of curfew now, and the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath and paled her brow."

[telephone rings]

Bunny Watson: "Shall she let it ring? No, never! Flash her eyes with sudden light, as she springs and grasps it firmly...

[answers the phone]

Bunny Watson: ...curfew shall not ring tonight!"

[audible click]

Bunny Watson: They hung up. And I know another one! "Out she swung, far out, the city seemed a speck of light..."

[Hekate]

25. That is beyond charming & on into hysterically funny. I never knew that film existed, & now...

… I MUST find it! Perhaps I shall google for it…

[Staph]

27. It shows up on Turner Classic Movies from time to time.

And my local library has the film on DVD for loan!

[Hekate]

35. We're going to see if the Library has it. Our system covers 3 counties, yay.

We love public libraries.

ETA: Hubs says they’ve got 4 DVDs and he’s put our name in.

[TNNurse]

30. Those scenes are wonderful.

Excellent examples of reference librarians.

[AllaN01Bear]

37. i remember that film. wonder if its on dvd.

[Hekate]

22. My family had Encyclopedia Britannica and the World Book set, as well as the Webster's Collegiate...

…Dictionary. I used to read all of them for fun from time to time — looking up a word in Webster’s would lead me onwards to another and another.

Google is handy, but we have definitely lost something.

[jpak]

43. I read all those cover to cover

Multiple times when I was a kid.

[Hekate]

49. Things would just lead me on, skipping about. One of my favorite authors has a kid who read...

… the family dictionary all the way through by the age of 9 or 10, “because nobody told her you weren’t supposed to do it that way,” which makes me wonder if that’s what he did. Sussurus, sussurus.

[LAS14]

23. I just didn't pursue as many avenues of curiosity. Now it's so easy, but...

... I'm not sure cluttering my mind like this is improving things.

Do kids learn how to really research a topic? Not just get answers to questions they're able to formulate?

[dalton99a]

24. Kick

[Brother Buzz]

26. Reader's guide to periodical literature, Baby!

Today, you can buy them on eBay, along with library card catalogs.

[appleannie1]

28. I had a bookcase with an older set of encyclopedia in the bathroom.

The newer set was in the living room.

[Hekate]

38. Our Britannica bookcase was in the hallway.I broke my toe on it once: talk about an immovable object

You certainly had some elevated bathroom literature.

[appleannie1]

40. With 7 kids you need a quiet room where no one bothers you

[Hekate]

46. Ah yes, I remember it well

[erronis]

50. Yup - the bathroom is the "Reading Room". Even if no business is happening...

[BigmanPigman]

29. I either looked it up in World Book

or asked mom and dad.

[homegirl]

32. When I recently

revealed to a friend that my parents bought the complete Encyclopedia Britannica when I was eight years old (1943) she remarked-"they bought you the equivalent of the internet. I never ran out of reading material after that purchase.

[YoshidaYui]

33. my family had the world book encyclopedias

I always loved looking through them... History, Science... it was all fascinating.

[FakeNoose]

39. Before Google ... before the internet

... there used be a lot of arguments. At least in my family, we had a lot of arguments. Many times we decided - just to end the argument and move on - well, we'll probably never know. That's how it mostly ended.

Now that we have Google, well ... we know the answer, but we still argue about it anyway.

[Stuart G]

56. Libraries, Libraries, Libraries, and Libraries......OK..One More....Libraries are Great!!!!! MORE..

I went to the University of Illinois in Urbana. It had one of the largest and most inclusive libraries in the country. (3rd largest
if I recall.. It also had a college of "Library Science" where they taught individuals to be ..."Librarians".
.....Once...I was kind of looking around the "Journalism Library" ( in the late 60s when I attended"...and I came across an actual real copy of an 1860s newspaper from the civil war...Yes that was at that library in a basement for anyone to find. I found it, looked at it, and of course put it back where I found it. Yes, ... A one hundred year old newspaper found by an inquisitive student.

...And since I was a student there, I could take stuff out from that library. All kinds of stuff. At the time, I did realize what
a great place the ..."Library" was/is. Now, I have even more respect for the many branches of that library. There was the main branch, large 3 story building...and many other branches too. Like a "Math Library" in a math building, whose name
I cannot remember. Keep in mind that was about 50 years ago, and I remember the incredible collection and staff that the library had.

...Yes, the staff helped you find whatever you sought to find...And it was there, somewhere in that library. What an unbelievable resource that place was. .

.......................And that was before the...."INTERNET" ....................................................................

[hunter]

64. Before the internet there was PLATO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_%28computer_system%29

It was pretty much a curiosity by the time I had an account. Netscape was yet to be born.

I was still doing my best to ignore Microsoft and x86 computing.

The University of Illinois Urbana Libraries were still pretty awesome in the late 'eighties.

Here's hoping they still are.

[c-rational]

41. I love libraries. Thanks for the post.

[FoxNewsSucks]

42. We had the World Book set

and another set that was for grade-middle school age. Salesmen would come around every year from World Book and Encyclopaedia Britannica. EB was pretty expensive, so we just had WB and the annual update book.

I still have the set out in a box in my garage.

[bucolic_frolic]

44. Those in the know had Consumer Reports

but often decisions were aided not by knowledge but by superstition, or the Reader's Digest. Note they didn't call it Thinkers' Digest.

[IcyPeas]

45. we all bought a daily newspaper or 2 back then too

we got a lot of information from them.

[yaesu]

47. I had piles of hobby & trade magazines but research took much, much longer

[patphil]

48. My wife's been a librarian for nearly 40 years.

Libraries made the transition into the digital age relatively smoothly, and now you can get access to dozens of online databases from home, and all you need is a library card.
If you come into the library, there are trained, knowledgeable professionals that can help you find what you want in either the digital or analog (paper) world.
Believe it or not, books are still quite relevant. I don't think an e-book device can ever replace the organic feel of a book in your hands.
Libraries are community assets that allow people to come together is many different ways.

They're going to be with us for a long time to come.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

80. Yes, books will be with us for a long time to come.

I understand that more physical books are sold each year than digital ones, which makes a lie out of the notion that no one reads physical books anymore.

I do have a Kindle, bought it two years ago when I was going on a cruise, rather than carry lots of physical books with me. As it turned out, I didn't read anything I'd loaded on the Kindle on that cruise, but since then I have read several books on it. It's a convenient alternative. But my personal preference is always for physical books.

I love libraries. In 2008 I moved to my current city (Santa Fe, NM) following a divorce. The divorce left me with less money than before, and I could no longer afford to buy books. So I went back to the public library. In the time when I'd been more affluent, and was purchasing all of my books, I'd forgotten about the joys of the public library. Even if I were to get fantastically rich, I will never again stop going to the library.

[patphil]

90. Joys of the Public Library. I'll tell my wife that, it will bring a smile to her face.

Santa Fe's a nice city...ever been to Meow Wolf?

My daughter lives in Albuquerque and we usually take a side trip up there whenever we visit her.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

93. I love living in Santa Fe.

I moved here in 2008, after my marriage of 25 years ended.

I've only been to Meow Wolf once. It's really aimed at far younger people than me. I did enjoy it.

[Ford_Prefect]

51. One of the joys I discovered in our local library was the Oxford English Dictionary, along with

several others next to multiple versions of thesaurus, rhyming dictionaries and other magical sources regarding the histories, derivations, meanings, and usage of words.

Imagine that among all those collected, carefully ordered words on those many, many shelves was the explanation and family history of every single one of them, and all of their Sisters, their Cousins, and their Aunts.

[niyad]

52. Indexes. Reference books. Card catalogues.All pre-computer.

[Lucinda]

57. ❤️ ✿❧🌿❧✿ ❤️

[Lucinda]

58. ❤️ ✿❧🌿❧✿ ❤️

❤️ ✿❧🌿❧✿ ❤️

[Buckeye_Democrat]

59. Yep, my family relied upon encyclopedias and other...

... reference books at home. Went to the library for even more information, if needed.

[Dial H For Hero]

60. This clip from "How I Met Your Mother" illustrates it perfectly;

&ab_channel=vcalikali

[questionseverything]

69. That clip is heartbreaking and true

[L. Coyote]

61. I traveled all over half the country to major university libraries to do research.

Somewhere I still have a very long list of all the references I had yet to find.

[Straw Man]

62. For starters, we were better at remembering things.

It is no longer a necessary skill. I fear the long-term effect on human intelligence.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

81. Meh. Back when writing was first invented,

and people no longer had to memorize the epic poems like The Iliad or The Odyssey, the society elders said that kids today had no memory and were worthless and stupid. Sound familiar?

[Straw Man]

82. Double meh. There's a big difference ...

... in having a ready store of factual information in your head and having thousands of lines of poetry there.

[DavidDvorkin]

63. Thank God for the Internet.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

66. The internet has vastly improved over the years.

It seemed to offer almost nothing of academic value in the early 90's, but it offers more educational opportunities now.

People can easily point out the copious misinformation that's on the internet now, but there's also some quite excellent videos and papers covering real science too.

[DavidDvorkin]

67. One does have to learn which sources to trust and which to be suspicious of

But that was always true with printed materials, too.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

68. True. I briefly read some whacko books...

... about Nicola Tesla when I was a teenager, which caused me some anxiety because of all the conspiracies involved to prevent the sharing of the "free energy" nonsense.

Then I continued my science education and only then fully realized it was nonsense.

All before the internet was a thing in my life.

Edit: I was suspicious already, especially after an older whacko coworker recommended a bookstore full of those Nicola Tesla books in Columbus OH... and I later drove there to discover it was a bookstore that specialized in books about "crystal power" and all kinds of fringe topics.

[Caribbeans]

65. Alta Vista

[area51]

70. Welcome to DU.

[erronis]

89. AltaVista was going to be my answer too. Except gopher, lynx, compuserv, newsgroups, etc.

[Hekate]

72. My grad school English prof sent us on "get to know your library's idiosyncrasies" excursions...

He said that every library was unique: not just the building and layout, but employees and patrons. There were patterns to misfiling, even.

I absolutely loved that class.

Dr. S sent me to find something-or-other about Joseph Conrad, so I sat on the floor in the stacks pulling out one book after another, running my finger down the Index pages. Occasionally I’d see something I thought was interesting and would dip in for a bit. Found what he told me to find, eventually, but what I told the seminar was this: “Joseph Conrad was an absolute bastard to his wife.” Shocked the socks off the young men in the group — how could I? I backed it up pretty thoroughly: bottom line, if you look thru enough books about the man, you end up really feeling for his wife — if you’re a woman.

On other occasions, when my classmates were baffled, I suggested consulting the telephone directory.

[KentuckyWoman]

73. Asked our Mom's.

If she did not know then off to the library.

[Skittles]

74. you talked to people, went to the library, used the telephone

to me it really wasn't that long ago!

edited to add THE YELLOW PAGES!

[TeamProg]

79. We had to actually dig in to a subject. We were objective.

Unlike the thin veneer of what might qualify as “knowledge” these days.

Yeah, three sentences, got it. I’m now an expert on the subject.

[Demovictory9]

83. I still have a Thomas guide in my car...haven't used it for years though

[electric_blue68]

85. We never had the Britannica or others. We did have at least one...

Encyclopedia. Also (mid '60s) the Time Life ❤️ Science set, and ❤️ Nature set. National Geographic.

The libraries - local, the bigger ones (Lincoln Cntr for Performing Arts, Donnell, Mid Manhattan), and biggest one - the Lion Library.

And yeah on one of my late teenhood trips to DC we visited The Library of Congress. So beautiful, impressive!

[muriel_volestrangler]

86. A shout-out for the Index Medicus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Medicus

which was the basis for my mum's work in the local medical library - doctors would need papers and articles on a condition, and she'd find them.

[Polybius]

87. I used Lycos, AltaVista, and Excite for searching

I didn't get into Goggle until around 2003.

[PittBlue]

88. As a retired High School librarian, I so appreciate this...

Also makes me so sad. They are not even putting libraries in schools anymore.

[Phentex]

91. We made calls to phones without answering machines!

We made a lot of phone calls to get information. And sometimes the line was busy so you had to call back. And sometimes you got a person who had to look up information and call you back. The birth of phone tag!

[jcgoldie]

94. You called somebody who knew stuff

And if you were someone who tended to know stuff or at least people thought you did, you got a lot of calls. Nobody calls anymore...

[UTUSN]

96. google is my cognitive defense - when the word escapes me, google for something close & there it IS!