Eldergays: how did one find obscure/trivial information before the internet?

Welcome to the library! The Berry that lies!!

I always asked a librarian. They used to be some of the smartest people on the planet.

Ripley's Believe It or Not!

You'll think I'm joking, but I really cannot think of the word right now. Some newspapers put out annual indices of useful information, like the NYT 1985 book of facts. There's a term for this. It would have maps, lists of capitals, basic data about states and foreign countries, a bit of biographical data, and it would be updated annually. People would buy these and encyclopedias as reference guides.

The World Almanac and Book of Facts - I bought one every year and scoured them.

Almanac

Thanks, r5 and r6. They were handy, and you could learn odd stuff by perusing them.

it was frustrating and I usually dropped the search after hitting walls. My lifelong curiosity just waited for the introduction of the WWW

You could call a big library (like at a university) and they could answer most questions for you. For instance, there used to be big volumes of information about businesses, so they could have found your Gatorade answer for you.

Clay tablets.

Agree with r2. The Kaneohe, Hawaii librarian was smart and if she didn’t know the answer, she’d call back the next day with it. A kinder, gentler time.

[quote] I always asked a librarian. They used to be some of the smartest people on the planet.

Well I never in all my life!

I think the explosion of answers on the internet fed the explosion of questions, too.

They asked me.

[quote]I think the explosion of answers on the internet fed the explosion of questions, too.

I think this is true. People might have a vague thought about “when was Gatorade invented” but then quickly forget about it... because there was no realistic way to find that out. Now, you just google whatever randomly pops in your head.

Also, we were taught how to use the library. I remember multiple trips to the library, in different grades, to be taught how to use indices, encyclopedias and other reference books to find information.

Before the internet was accessible to the public, I read a lot. I kept a list of things I wanted to check on my next library visit. Inside the cover of whatever novel I was reading, I would jot questions that arose while reading. We were accustomed to not having immediate answers to every question.

And dictionaries often had useful appendices, e.g., a pronouncing gazetteer, tables of weights and measures, terms of address for correspondence, etc.

School!

Good question! Thank you for asking. One went to the library. Even local, city, county libraries had research materials of all sorts and the librarians were real librarians and were incredibly helpful. Those days are gone now and I miss them. It’s great to be able to find obscure facts on the internet, but what you find online is usually unverified and often just plain wrong.

Encyclopedias. Go to library and research the card index files by topic, or use the microfiche for media.

OP, you would contact Bunny Watson at the Federal Broadcasting Network reference library. She was one smart cookie.

I’d ask my parents who’d make up answers just to shut me up.

The Readers Guide to Periodical Literature

Encyclopedias. Libraries. See r22, above. Books.

The crucial distinction, OP, is that we didn't have Social Media to become obsessed with; no cell-phones for texting to constantly be in communication with others; less money to spend on activities beyond the neighborhood.

IOW, we had little difficulty in learning of history, science, literature, and the like. For the current events or the less serious, we had magazines (much better than today's).

But for the excruciating details on inconsequential people the equivalents of the Kardashians or YouTubers or Instagrammers, well, we simply didn't bother our beautiful minds about such!

You'd look up stuff in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature and then you'd crawl around in the stacks to find your article.

You bitches loved me once.

Dewey, you were a worm!

We read books, newspapers, magazines. We ddin't just click onto a link and only read that one story. Instead, when we read we were surrounded by other information. Libraries were a great source of information. We had encyclopedias so when you looked up something, you might come across other pieces of information that you wouldn't ordinarily know. And we talked with each other in person and on the telephone. We engaged in the art of conversation. We didn't just throw out one-line quips on Twitter. Simply "liking" someone on Facebook would not be considered keeping in touch. We didn't email and text and consider that being a friend or even an acquaintance. We sent Christmas cards, birthday cards and cards for special occasions via the U.S. mail to acknowledge others.

In other words, we put in the effort to make friends, keep in touch with family and gather information to help us navigate through life. It wasn't perfect compared to today's technological advancements, but it was different and kept us informed. We didn't just surround ourselves with like-minded people or information the way we can shut ourselves off from other points of view nowadays. And we certainly wouldn't think of publicly insulting people to the degree we do today so as to stifle or shut down information.

Would it have made sense to call the company and ask? Or would that have incurred long distance charges?

R27, who is this mystical "we"? People moved to the suburbs to do exactly that, seal themselves off from other viewpoints and lives. There was the Red Scare, the Lavender Scare, people having their lives ruined or ended over their struggles for racial and gay civil rights. I know you wanted to get this particular bit of modern abuse off your chest (and I agree with much of it), but let's not create an imagined past in order to make a point.

[quote] We had encyclopedias so when you looked up something, you might come across other pieces of information that you wouldn't ordinarily know.

For a child with a curious mind (and that’s most children) a set of encyclopedias is a great friend. As a kid, I’d pull a volume at random from the shelf and sit quietly for long periods, flipping through page after page of knowledge on seemingly every subject under the son.

Whose son, R30?

r30 me too. It's how I discovered, among other things, Leo Tolstoy.

My parents weren't intellectuals, but bless them, they had a set of encyclopedias

I guess I "came of age" too late to truly appreciate librarians in the quest for pre-ubiquitous-internet knowledge

[quote]But today I thought, "What year was Gatorade first manufactured?" I'm sure I type questions like that into Google hundreds of times a week.

I worry about you.

Why, r34? I wonder about all sorts of things I encounter in my daily life

R33/OP---Librarians are still at the library helping people find out about stuff they need to know!

I was something of a letter writer as a kid. If I'd wanted to know about gatorade details, I'd have written to the address on the Gatorade container and asked.

Crossword puzzle dictionary

Encyclopaedia Brittanic

We had several books at home when I was a kid that had all kinds of answers in them, so a couple of almanacs, a book of facts or two, this thing called The Book of Lists (which my mom hid once she realized there was a list for "most popular sexual positions"), World Books, Childcraft, bird and gardening books, repair books, an atlas, stuff like that.

There were also series of helpful books from places like Time-Life, where you'd get several books on art, or the Old West, or "how things work in your home."

Also, books often had "related works" listed in the front or back, so if you had a book about plumbing that was useful, you might see that they also had a book about house painting and you'd buy that, too.

We called Katherine Hepburn.

Katharine, dammit

As a kid I wasn't much into reading, especially fiction but take me to the library and I could spent all day in the reference section, so much interesting things to read. My mother bought a set of encyclopedias and I would read those for hours and hours on end.

You could call and I imagine still call the library ask for reference and the librarian would look up any fact you needed. I preferred to look myself.

R39 I was just about to post about The Book of Lists. If you loved random factoids, that was the book for it. First edition was 1977. I read it as a kid, and yes, there was a lot of mature content. Related to another thread, it's where I learned about Rasputin's picked penis. That was in the list of "famous preserved body parts".

Basic research! I landed in the honors program in college, which turned out to offer almost remedial courses in subjects outside your major. To fill a credit, I took a comparative religion class and drew the Christian Scientists as my topic of study. I went to a reading room on background, and eventually interviewed a couple members there. I spent a couple of afternoons a week for the quarter in the library and wrote what the professor called a model of a well researched thesis. Yay. I could do the same thing in probably under 4 hours with internet access. I wonder how nerds impress teachers today?

R44, did you ever date outside your major or program?

Well I never in all my life!

If you wanted information about the company, you'd contact the company. By writing a letter. Think of how hard that would be. Today, you can find a customer service or corporate email in 2 minutes. Then you'd have to use the product label to try to figure out where it was, then maybe call the library in that city for them to look up a phone number or address for the company. Then youd have to hope your letter ended up getting passed to the right person at the company (or someone in consumer relations which i think is what they called it) and you'd maybe eventually get a letter back with your questions answered.

I graduated nursing school in 1993, and one of my final papers required hours of searching for dusty bound journals in the uni library stacks.

Then photocopying numerous pages of studies (although tbh, would usually just copy a few pages with pertinent results or quotes).

The good part is that professors couldn’t easily check if bogus filler made-up references were used either.

"Eldergays: how did one find obscure/trivial information before the internet?"

We mostly tried not to give a shit.

Nobody wanted to be that guy at the brunch.

Of course, I would have preferred nobody wanted to be that guy at brunch who went into gruesome detail about the trick who fisted him the night before, but, alas, I lived in San Francisco and that was not to be.

Lie.

One time when I was little, my mom and dad and I were unable to settle a question at the dinner table, so I suggested that we call the operator and ask her. They laughed and let me do it. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what the issue was or what the operator said.

In the absence of google or the operator, we settled factual questions through stubbornness and intimidation. Whoever cared the most about some stupid thing, or whose ego was the most threatened by the possibility of being wrong, prevailed or believed they had. I believe that’s why Datalounge feels so familiar to me.

Books! You still do. I have read so many great anecdotes in books that are nowhere on the Internet.

We had a huge, thick dictionary (Webster’s, IIRC) at home, with gold on the side and finger tabs. Lots of little color illustrations. A whole page of different insects.

I’d ask my mom what something meant and she’d say: Look. It. Up.

New York Times Index... which told you which drawer you could find the correct sheet of microfiche ... which you put under the glass on a big light projector to see the article you were looking for.

As a very shy gayling, I would spend hours at our local library reading Premiere, Movieline, Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone magazines. My mom would drop me off there once a week, I would find the magazines I wanted and read them at a table and it was heaven.

Very fond memories of the library.

And yes - as stated above - we had so many trainings in school about how to use libraries, how to find things, etc.

Very different time. Getting nostalgic reading this thread. I’m 41 for reference.

I think most middle-class households had small libraries. Reference books were dirt cheap (all the content was in the public domain) and often given away (schools, supermarkets, churches, etc.). My home had encyclopedias, anthologies, atlases, dictionaries, magazines like Time and National Geographic got archived, incomplete sets of “The Complete Encyclopedia of_______”. Non-fiction books meant something totally different then.

I don’t remember reference books being dirt cheap. I think a set of encyclopedias were considered an investment. We had the World Book set ( green spine).

I used to have visions that I would become a great young Broadway actress ala Marjorie Morningstar. i pictured it like the old movies along with stardom and great wealth and romance.. As pre teen & teen I spent hours at the library listening to Broadway Cast Albums on the headphones. I devoured all of the movie/theatre bios in the seventies and 80s = the David Niven books, Josh Logan, Moss Hart, Gertrude Lawrence, Mary Martin, Doris Day, Lauren Bacall... I loved to sit at the library and read the Whatever Became of Books. I would read the Best Play of the year books and memorize the original Broadway casts. I used to go back to those wonderful boxes of magazines at the back of the library and read all of the back copies of Theatre Arts Magazine and search the ads in back for the summer stock and summer theatre programs in New England, it was all so real to me = I wanted it so much. It never happened = BUT to this day because I spent so many hours pouring over that stuff in the library = 30+ years later (I'm 56) I could blow anyone out of the water on Jeopardy in a Broadway category,

[quote]Very different time. Getting nostalgic reading this thread.

Me too r55

I’d go up to smart looking men and ask them if they knew the info I needed. If they did - great! If they didn’t- I’d ask them if they needed their cocks and feet sucked.

We had Collier's Encyclopedia which was a top tier set but it wasn't the World Book which was considered primo. By the time I was in 6th we had a full set of World Book including all the yearbooks.... They were great!

We also had a sub set volumes books on science and scientific information... They were great to read... I cant remember the name nut I am pretty sure the are still on a bookshelf at home....

You could also always call Marilu Henner and ask her what had happened on any given day.

[quote] I could blow anyone out of the water on Jeopardy in a Broadway category,

But then I could alwaysh shmash you like an inshect when it came around to "Potent Potablesh"! Sho it all evensh out in the end.

I used my handgun to make people talk.