this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2024
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I would imagine it was harder to get information on topics as you would've had to buy/borrow encyclopedias to do.

Were there proprietary predecessor websites?

Tell me about the dark ages!

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[โ€“] cAUzapNEAGLb@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I loved going to the library's giant shelf of encyclopedias and picking one at random and flipping through the pages and skim reading.

The books were heavy and had a distinctive smell, and occasionally someone tore out a page and then that was just lost knowledge.

If there was a speicific question, Librarians were essentially our search engine, you'd ask them a question, and they'd think on it, maybe even ask a couple follow up questions, and they'd tell you to come back in a little bit or even a couple days, and when you return they'd hand you a list of books to find and checkout/read to find your answer.

It wasn't fast, but it made finding answers and factoids its own adventure.

Going to the library was probably quicker back then when you could judt ride a dinosaur!