• utopiah@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    You had… a dictionary at home, maybe an encyclopedia, but if you didn’t you could call a librarian and ask them if they had any reference on any topic. It took minutes when they were opened rather than seconds any time but… no ads, no tracking, serendipity yet no distraction, was it actually worst then?

    • wowleak@sh.itjust.works
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      18 hours ago

      Call for minutes!? That was expensive and in my small town everyone would know what i was searching for in no time.

      • Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        5 hours ago

        Where I am, I don’t think there are many towns without a library. I grew up laminate poor in the 90s, and even we had encyclopedias.

        *I was going to say dirt poor, like dirt floor poor, and the basement was dirt and stone, but the kitchen had laminate. So it was more like post economic boom poor. Laminate poor, eh eh

        I could imagine some more rural areas of the world not having access to libraries in their town, or being too broke to afford encyclopedias and other books, or having parents who don’t put importance on it. I’ve met too many parents today in that last group.

        Even so, I used my school’s library more than the town one growing up. I’d hope your school had one