Life Before Google

The local public library.

My mother knew everything.

My university library system, in particular the research library and the biomed library.
The local county library, which could get books from libraries across the US.

Libraries, telephones and personal connections.

Encyclopedia, dictionary, library or call a friend.

World Book Encyclopedia

You looked it up in your Funk and Wagnalls!

Another vote for libraries - librarians are the experts in searching for information - still know better how to search.

Tossing and turning in bed, scouring the brain until finally falling asleep.

Of course that didn't provide the answer, but perhaps the tossing and turning would jar loose the information and it would be there for you when you woke in the morning.

A reminder - Google isn't the only way to search for things!

(can be a lot of fun, though!)

All good answers and I remember loving the smell of the library. I even liked using the old card catalogs to find books.

I really love roaming around the racks and just picking books at random. I absolutely know that research is easier with the aid of the computer and I use the computer all the time. But I still have to read from books though. I just cannot read and absorb information the same way on a computer screen.

In addition to Google I use DogPile a lot. In fact I prefer the dogpile unless I need images. For pictures I think Google is better.

Google allows folks to get me, and vice versa, in real time...

U-tube is just a lovely bonus.

I grew up with a fabulous library. It was four stories tall and took up a couple of city blocks. The building was similar in stature and design to government buildings making it even more "official" and important in my young mind.

The librarians always greeted visitors. The smell was of leather and old paper. I could find anything there and could stay for hours finding nothing in particular.

When I went to the University I was overwhelmed to have found an even bigger and better library.

I miss good libraries. I wish I could have shared them with my kids. We only have small libraries with mostly nonfiction and a Borders or Barnes and Noble atmosphere without the coffee. No yellowed pages, leather bindings or ability to do real research.

My first thought was: "Altavista, obviously".
But no. You meant before the internet.

Libraries, friends who know about the thing I'm searching (I still get about a phone call a week, and phone to others about once every month).

But libraries and enciclopedias are it.
I got hooked on "Rome", the fabulous HBO series.
Of course, I researched a lot about the historical background on Google, and other links. Soon found out it wasn't enough for my hunger.
So I went to a World History enciclopedia and read about the period... and I reread Suetonius' "Lives of the Twelve Caesars" and even went on to read parts of the works of Virgil (now with better knowledge of the context: did not have the slightest idea that his work was actually part of Augustus' propaganda machine).
Google can't give you that... yet.

I became italophilic in 1988.. and I probably still could call myself that. First I started with used book stores, then graduated to the research library as I chased my interests, which kept multiplying..

I also loved card catalogs and rue their destruction, given the notations on some of the cards.

"Probably". Now that's an understatement!

I read TheTwelve Ceasars too and really liked it. Another couple of good books about Rome are I, Claudius I and II, Graves is the author I think it was a long time ago.

The simple truth of the matter is that before the Internet and its related search engines, knowledge/information was much more difficult to assess.

get on my bike and ride it alllll the way to the library to look stuff up in encyclopedias, or sometimes in back issues of news papers, depends on what type of information I needed. I also used my parents (they were old) so they should know stuff about history right? Grandma was a good source too, she was around before the airplane!! She grew up riding a horse and lived through all the big changes in history like cars and airplanes. Imagine from being a small child riding a horse all the time to growing up and flying around the whole world. Which she did on a 52 day world tour. She saw the first landing on the moon etc. Will our lives today see such monumental changes?