Encyclopedias. Dictionaries. Honestly, before google I was a lot less curious by nature. I think the computer has made us far more inquisitive.

Do I really need to know which orange soda tastes the best? We've become a world of info-mongerers.

I liked the Alta Vista search engine... I think that's the name of it.   Better than most of the others on the computer at the time.

Before that I kept a lot more schtuff in my head and I would buy too many reference books  USED so I could pretend to afford them   AND  go to the library to look things up and do my best to make as few errors as possible in articles and reviews I was writing.

There were also a few people I would call to check facts with.. and that's something I miss doing, because you would have more conversations with people and sometimes socialize ...  

Now you can zip onto google, however... I still don't assume facts are checked perfectly just because I find it on a wesite or in an article someone else has written...  wrong information can get passed along and repeated just as easily as right information can... so I try to find a couple of sources and from good sources that aren't likely to just copy each other....  Most of the time this keeps me out of trouble.

I still get emails and phone calls from people who use me to check on things.. but far less frequently then it used to happen....  Anyone can google now...

and I ramble on and on......

I asked a few people, if they didn't know I said "ah, who cares".  Haha!  It's funny but since the internet came into the picture, suddenly we all NEED to know stuff more that we could have cared less about before.  If I want to know who was that chick in the movie with that guy, I can look it up!  Before I'd just forget about it.  But now with google, I HAVE to look it up!

We didn't get the internet in our house until 97, but it feels like we've had it forever!  Back then it was slow speed, and google wasn't really the leader it is today.  Now I can't live without it :)

I'm still needed to "find things".  People always say I find things fast.  Some just aren't that good at googling I guess!

I think google and the 24 hour news cycle have made us all slightly insane. I do know that disagreements over trivia are less fun with google and the internet, I cant remember the last time I used a dictionary for a definition.

Pre google I used to call the library reference line in my own town. They would happily and for free look up anything, no matter how trivial it was. It was a great resource.

TaraLee said…

I think google and the 24 hour news cycle have made us all slightly insane. I do know that disagreements over trivia are less fun with google and the internet, I cant remember the last time I used a dictionary for a definition.

 

---

I have a friend who watches the news All Day. I don't see how he can watch the same stories over and over.

I'm not comfortable on the couch without a tough crossword puzzle and my dogeared old paperback dictionary.

I first used NCSA Mosaic, which was the precursor to Netscape Navigator. I went to the library otherwise... has anyone ever asked the resident Reference Librarian at their local library for information? At my college, she was a one person Google and internet by herself. What you needed, where you could find it, and a little about what you would find. It was an honor among librarians to be considered for reference librarian. My college roommate did her work-study job at the library, so that's how I know so much.

I used whatever search engine was around. Maybe AOL? Before the internet, I guess...I had a real life and did real things and my friends were people I could actually see without a webcam. Hmmm. I think I used encyclopedias, dictionaries, and the "Oh well it didn't matter anyway" theory of fact finding.

Here's something that will make you all laugh: I am young enough to not remember life before Google!

I vaguely remember learning how to use encyclopedias and reference materials throughout elementary and middle school, but going to the computer lab was a weekly requirement in school when I was in third grade. We were taught all about "touch typing" and how to use Microsoft Office.

It honestly scares me when I think about the day that I have my own kids. I wonder if they will learn how to handwrite before they learn to type?

"life before Google"  I forget what I was doing~!

oops, steak's burning...!

I think I was cooking ;)

I was always pretty good about looking things up at the library. Once, pre-Internet, an international friend asked me to find the company that built the switches that went into a highly technical product. I made a couple phone calls, looked in some reference books and found the company and the part number of the switch.

It was possible to find out that information back then, but it was a completely different process.

--Bob

rustaddsflavor said…

Encyclopedias. Dictionaries. Honestly, before google I was a lot less curious by nature. I think the computer has made us far more inquisitive.

Do I really need to know which orange soda tastes the best? We've become a world of info-mongerers.

---

I used the library archives of newspaper, and other to do searche. Also I used bing.com via Mozilla Firefox and its add ons along with Google to do some translating to understand a post or two.

microfiche~!

When I was in college....way back when, I virtually lived in the library when I wasn't in class.  I got very good at research techniques.

We now live in an age where information is almost too available.  we're bombarded with it 24/7 and often react to it before we've had time to reflect on it.  Action - Reaction!  Sometimes I think we'd be better served if we slowed down just a tad.

At the library there were bounds and bounds of books that referenced ALL of the articles in ALL of the magazines/newspapers (maybe? I'm not sure). I can't remember what they were called, but I LIVED on those things for years. We didn't get the Internet until I was half way through high school, so I didn't even know how to use it (www. what? Huh?) for years.

Periodical Indexes are what we used to look up magazine articles and they didn't have every magazine in it, but they covered many.   I shall look up more info...

 Readers Guide to Periodical Indexes and not all Libraries would subscribe to the same magazines and not all magazines would be available.  Many large library systems subscribed to 100s of magazines and would do inter-library trading or fill requests for more obscure magazines.

Periodical Indexes varied in sizes an types.   They covered popular subject topics.

Each volume of a print periodical index covers a specific period of time. There may be a time lag of several months between the time an article is published and when it appears in an index.. For example, an article published in September 1997 may not appear in an index until 1998.

Useful descriptive information is often included in the prefatory pages in the front of each index volume. Suggestions on how to use the index, lists of general abbreviations and periodical title abbreviations, and an alphabetical list of the periodicals indexed may be found in the prefatory sections.

Articles are organized in periodical indexes under subject headings. Each listing of a periodical article is a citation. Citations appear alphabetically by article title under each subject heading. A citation includes such information as the title of the article, the author's name, any special features included with the article, the title of the periodical, the volume number, the date of the issue, and the pages of the article. Following is a sample citation from Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature:

Gun Control is the subject heading under which the citation is listed. The citation itself includes the following information:
Targeting gun makers...................................Title of the article
M. Bai...................................................Author of the article
Il...........................................................Illustrated article
Newsweek ..............................................Title of the periodical
V131.....................................................Volume number of the periodical
No15.....................................................Issue number of the periodical
P37.........................................................Page number of the article
Ap 13 '98.................................................Date of the periodical

Most periodical indexes contain sample citations similar to the one illustrated above with explanatory notes describing each element in the citation.

The most widely used periodical indexes are:

Art Index
Biography Index
Business Periodicals Index
Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature
Education Index
Essay and General Literature Index
General Science Index
Humanities Index
Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature
Social Sciences Index

Ahhhhhhh   google..... 

{cries}  CHRIS~!  All that typing~! 

Actually, I'm sure it's very helpful if I read it.  LOL

Fast typist and about half is a cut and paste..

wildcatkatie said…

Here's something that will make you all laugh: I am young enough to not remember life before Google!

I vaguely remember learning how to use encyclopedias and reference materials throughout elementary and middle school, but going to the computer lab was a weekly requirement in school when I was in third grade. We were taught all about "touch typing" and how to use Microsoft Office.

It honestly scares me when I think about the day that I have my own kids. I wonder if they will learn how to handwrite before they learn to type?

---

My sons both could type and play games on the computer before they could write their own names. My youngest was 2 when he mastered his first full length game. It was educational but weird that, at such a young age, he was working the computer like a pro. He did know how to TYPE his name but it took a while for him to learn to write. And he still doesn't write well now! He's messy and would rather type. The school said, when I asked about his messy writing and somewhat awful spelling when he was young, that all he needed to know was how to sign his name.

That's scary.

That's funny Patty, I never would let mine play computer games until he was about 10 when he got his first Nintendo.  Every parent's different I guess.  I always sat with him to write his name, do numbers, the alphabet, etc.   And believe me, when he did get that Nintendo, it was very limited as to time he was allowed to use it/play on it.  Same with Television.  He had to use all the resources available at the time for book reports and such...like the library at school, actual textbooks (lol) and all of that.  

But my son's older than your boys, he's 28 now ~ and I was quite strict but fun at the same time.  I didn't get the internet until 2000 and he had graduated and went away to college the year before...whew~!  Escaped that ;) 

As an older member:) I too used the library and these draws that pulled out and told you where to find the book. I owned the World Book, one of the encyclopedias that are now dinosaurs. Really we often say "what did we do before".... but I'm talking relatively new things like cell phones. I was alive before we had copy machines! And I had a typewriter so what was done was using what is called carbon paper (This is actually funny. I feel like a grandmother telling her grand-kids what it was like growing up.) and you put it between papers and the writing went through. There are still similar things used like things that say "customer copy" but the carbon paper was messy.

We had all sorts of things for the typewriter - things that you could put over the mistake and go backward to fix.  I can't imagine what it will be like in 25 years from now.

I suppose I too am old and crusty, because in high school, shorthand, and typing (on an actual typewriter) were available classes to take. 

When I was in college, people would be really impressed with my speeches, and professors my papers, because I figured out how to use the Lynx, our college's text-only web browser in 1994. I really whipped people with all of my fancy facts and figures.

I'd be average now.  :)

I used Ask.com and AltaVista or Yahoo. Thank goodness for Google!!! And how they treat their employee's!! I wish I could work there, those ppl are sooo lucky!!

I forgot about carbon paper~!   Plus we had to learn to type on a clunky manual typewriter with the page return.  My hands & fingers were always so sore~!  Then about 1/2 way through high school, we got the IBM Selectrics and ppl were so excited...

And it would be awesome to work for Google, I agree.

PattyTherre said…

wildcatkatie said…

Here's something that will make you all laugh: I am young enough to not remember life before Google!

I vaguely remember learning how to use encyclopedias and reference materials throughout elementary and middle school, but going to the computer lab was a weekly requirement in school when I was in third grade. We were taught all about "touch typing" and how to use Microsoft Office.

It honestly scares me when I think about the day that I have my own kids. I wonder if they will learn how to handwrite before they learn to type?

---

My sons both could type and play games on the computer before they could write their own names. My youngest was 2 when he mastered his first full length game. It was educational but weird that, at such a young age, he was working the computer like a pro. He did know how to TYPE his name but it took a while for him to learn to write. And he still doesn't write well now! He's messy and would rather type. The school said, when I asked about his messy writing and somewhat awful spelling when he was young, that all he needed to know was how to sign his name.

That's scary.

---

And here I thought I was the only one going through this.  I can barely make out my daughter's handwriting.  Her schools never drilled students in cursive writing.  They don't seem to put much value on it.

On the other hand, her keyboard (typing) skills are awesome.  Oh, what price progress?

I use to go to askjeeves for my information. Before the internet I use to go to the library and look at encyclopedias.

Heh. I can barely make out my OWN writing!  I type so much and hardly ever write, so when I do write then try to go back and read it later I often cannot.  That's bad!

Before Google, I used Yahoo.  I honestly used to hate it when someone would use the word Google as a verb so I avoided Google for a long time.  Now, it's my search engine of choice.

Before the internet I worked in a library and hung around a lot of friends and family who know a lot of facts, useful or otherwise, so I'd ask them.  I'd go crazy if I couldn't think of a song name or an actor's name or some fact that was on the tip of my tongue so I'd call someone or go to the library.  So obviously I love having the internet available so I can look stuff up on a whim.

I'll never forget the first day we got a computer and internet at home.I had had it at work for a while but not at home until fall of 1997.  I remember laying in bed that night talking about taking a vacation and wondering what kinds of lodging options were available in the Outer Banks.  We laid there for like an hour speculating before I jumped out of bed, ran down the hall like a kid on Christmas morning, and had looked it up in a matter of seconds. It was super exciting.

It is such a fast-paced world now I tell ya.  I do think it's great to have the info at our whim. 

My brain has always worked at a fairly fast pace, and my husband's is a bit, shall we say um...not as fast nor are his reflexes.  I swear sometimes I feel like I have to spring up over the couch, jump across the room, spring into action...I'm just too wirey for my own good~!    Some days I do slow down, but mostly not.   I like Rudi's avatar because it reminds me sometimes to SLOW DOWN. Sometimes LOL. 

I think I placed *too* much emphasis on neat handwriting, I love mine and my son's is so awesome it makes mine look like 4th grade.  I guess I did one thing right LOL. 

Duh...BOOKS.

I mainly used the yahoo search engine. I would get frustrated with it though and so then I would check other ones.  Eventually there was one that searched numerous search engine for you [dogpile?] which a step up until google came along.

Before the internet [Thanks, Al Gore!] I would check out my encyclopedias, go to the library or call my Dad. [landline shout out]