I was a Science Reference Librarian at John Crerar Library in Chicago in the early 70's, and this sounds very familiar, although we tended to get a slightly more focused set of questions (and our boss Mr. Quinn was much more pleasant!). I love Wikipedia, but the books in our Reference Collection were remarkable.
I certainly wouldn't swap the instantaneity and comprehensiveness of Google for a set of reference books but there's no denying the joy of perusing a non-electronic book of quotations, a specialized dictionary or an encyclopedia.
How did they physically access the books and find the information in them quickly, given the (supposed-to-be) five-minute limit?
The article mentions "many hundreds" of references, which could be a couple meters of double-sided shelving, but also doesn't sound like enough to answer all the obscure questions mentioned - and five minutes doesn't sound long enough for a single random access into the library itself.
Many libraries still have an "ask a librarian" service, though it is usually an online chat. Those have not gone away with the rise of search engines.
If you're a student or researcher, your university almost certainly have one.
Reminds me of Desk Set (1957).
Bunny Watson (Katharine Hepburn) is a library reference clerk stuck in a dead-end relationship with a boring television executive (Gig Young). Her life is thrown into turmoil when computer expert Richard Summers (Spencer Tracy) enters it. He has been assigned with automating her department, and she is fearful that Summers' new computers will automate her out of a job.
If you're interested in having a non-Internet reference, one can purchase an encyclopedia:
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40675947
but for 'random facts' that may be of interest, I ran across this line of reference books that cover a bunch of topics:
> “Think like a librarian,”
I feel like "thinking" is something that we've to a large degree lost with the Internet, social media, and now LLMs and the like. My 12 year old son -- a good boy who does well in school but not exceptionally studious by any means -- is I think rather typical of his generation, and a common reply I get from him when I mention anything that requires deeper thought or effort: "that's too much work, just ask __ (chatbot of choice)". Maybe I'm just an "old boomer" as he (affectionately) calls me (I'm gen-X but "boomer" seems to be gen-Z slang for anyone over 40, besides the fact that NO ONE SEEMS TO REMEMBER THAT THERE A WHOLE F*ING GENERATION BETWEEN BOOMERS AND MILLENNIALS (but I digress), but I do worry that something very important is being lost - and I'm not quite sure how to prevent that other than living off the grid or something (which would quite literally kill my children -- as we were driving through the countryside the other day the same 12 year old exclaimed in only half-joking horror -- how can people live out here? do they even have internet?
Are there still any telephone reference desks left in the world? I would love to call up a human who could answer any question in full sentences with a set of references. Perhaps there is still an opportunity for such things in today's world, albeit likely behind some kind of paywall.
That's a job I would have liked to have.
I know internet searches make all of this so much faster, but this article reminds me that it's not like it was _not_ possible to get information pre-Internet; it just took more time. And considering how much the Internet has changed our entire way of life and the stressful always-on-demand way society expects you to be today, I often wonder if the positives really do outweigh the negatives. I'm not so sure.
The fact that we had to go to a library to research something or pick up the phone and ask someone who would do that, slowed the pace of everything down, which means we "got less done". But when I think of how much effort we now spend trying to mitigate the exponential rise of stress and anxiety, maybe being slow was a feature, not a bug, of happier living. Why are we obsessed with "getting things done"? Unless what you're doing is trying to curing cancer or the like, then I'm not sure that "getting more done" is particularly helpful to you or to society in general.
If by "getting more done" that meant we were able to work less and enjoy life more, maybe it would be worth it. But we're working more hours than in 1980 and unless you're in the top 10% you're not making that much more money than in 1980 (counting for inflation and purchasing power). So what has it brought us?