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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I grew up in the 90s, so we had Encarta for most of the time I needed an encyclopedia.
It also wasn’t uncommon to have a (partial) set of encyclopedias at home. You could buy them, one or more volumes at a time, over the phone or occasionally from door-to-door salespeople. We also had an old set from the 60s that we inherited from my grandmother.
It also wasn’t uncommon to have a (partial) set of encyclopedias
“The big book of answers” as it was (jokingly) referred to in my childhood home. It was kept near the dinner table to settle arguments. It never settled them
We also had a world book encyclopedia from the 1950s that I used for my elementary school projects in the 90’s. Very occasionally I’d notice something or of date, but overall it was fine.
I re read the entry on “lightning” and the half-page about “tornadoes” I don’t know how many times. And it was fun to flip through a random volume looking for good pictures.
I don’t remember what publisher made the ones we inherited from grandma. I recognize World Book, but I can’t say that’s what they were. I’m not sure if those old encyclopedias are still floating around somewhere in the family or if whoever had them last finally got rid of them.
A lot of the info in them was definitely still solid, agree.
Arguments at the dinner table were solved by an exasperated FINE, I’ll get up and get the encyclopedia just to prove you wrong
Also, we had Encarta. It wasn’t online, but on a CD-ROM so you could view it digitally compared to the dozens of hefty books
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We didn’t have encarta either. We would break out the encyclopedia
And any school project started with the encyclopedia and then a trip to the library for further research.
When I learned about Wikipedia it was awesome.
Askjeeves.com and then later google.
The Encyclopedia Brittanica, they advertised that shit constantly on nickelodeon. That and Encarta, a good old disc of knowledge. I suppose OP is unfamiliar, and that’s fine, but I’m not sure I can stretch it to thinking that there were just absolutely no resources available.
And it also comes down to you weren’t aware you could get that knowledge instantly, and so you didn’t miss it, per se. I did research papers on whomever in grade school and I went to the library and pulled out a couple books, mainly for the sake of padding the bibliography.
I was in eighth grade when wiki showed up, and by high school it became “no wikipedia” as a policy, but at that point, savvy enough individuals were using wiki for it’s bibliography.
And so, in short, the change wasn’t super pronounced. If I had a desire to learn something, I’d figure out some way to go learn it. The convenience is obviously there, though, I certainly don’t want to take anything away from wiki and what it’s done.
Don’t know I live in 1880 back in good ol` days of the empire
There was Encarta.
search engines and before that software encyclopedias and before that physical encyclopedias.
also libraries and they usually did not allow encyclopedias to be loaned out so that they were always available to people doing research. there was a section of books like that which were on site only use.
@Sunshine@lemmy.ca
Physical held the least amount of info (you probably weren’t going to find much). Software like encarta was cool - had lots of info. But in the days of dinosaurs libraries was where it was at. It was common to ask an adult a question and you get either “I don’t know” or some BS that you believed was true (but wasn’t).
If you really wanted to know, you’d ask the librarian at school or at your towns public library and they’d help you find a book on that topic. Libraries were magical places - even for the people who were too cool to admit it.
oh yeah and not just for information. Before lotr no media could beat a good book.
Libraries are still great.
Encarta. And something I can’t remember the name of that had a man’s bald head with grey hair on the sides…
People used to call the Reference Desk at their local public library to ask a question and get an answer.
library
In the long-long-ago, encyclopaedias were on paper, 28 volumes, and weighed 14kg. Quite comprehensive.
Then encyclopaedias were on a CD or two, around 100g.
Before Wikipedia, everything2 was a previous example of a massively-interlinked-website. You could search and maybe turn up some details.
Or prior to google being created, you would just do a search in metacrawler.com to usually turn up some OK answers.
Metacrawler takes me back, as well as having to use paper encyclopaedias for school!
Back in the days before the interwebs and pocket computers with access to all the knowledge and history of mankind, there were the outdated encyclopedia at home that you’d pop out occasionally, the up to date encyclopedia at the library that you never got around to check out anything casual and then there was the truth by the person arguing the most insistent that they were right.
Encarta and Comptons
In the long, long ago times we had these things called libraries where books were checked out and accessible by using a card. Finding out factual information could take a bit of time depending on how obscure it was, but librarians were very helpful in finding things.
Otherwise stuff was mostly passed on by word of mouth and people tended to believe whoever said stuff with the most confidence. So like today’s social media, but slower and mostly in person.
Wewould have to purchase the encyclopedia britanica every few years
