My country's national library used to provide a service in the 70s/80s where you could send a letter or telegram with a question, any question, and they'd do their best to answer it.
My Mum was a big fan of it, I've still got a copy of their telegram response to her question of "Why don't we see birds flying overhead with a penis flopping around?"
The answer was simple.
"Most birds don't have penises. They press cloaca to cloaca. Birds that do have penises store them in their bodies when not mating. Please stop sending questions about penises"
...it wasn't her first animal penis question submitted, and I'm assuming she'd developed a reputation.
That's fascinating. I can remember pre-internet days being resigned to not knowing stuff.
For example albums in my country generally didn't include the lyrics. Every time it came on the radio, I asked people what was the singer saying over and over in REM's "The sidewinder sleeps tonight". Nobody knew. Another was a foreign language pop song I remembered from when I was on holiday abroad as a teenager. I searched fruitlessly for it in record shops at home.
Decades later, on a whim I found it by googling and then the original video on youtube (I'd only heard it on juke boxes)
In college in Washington, DC, in 1987 or so, drinking after hours in a bar (at about 3:30AM) we were having a argument over which was the capital and which was the largest city in Scotland. Not reaching any agreement, the bartender wisely realized that the British Embassy would have a duty officer on, who he called from the bar, and who quite happily answered all of our questions and settled the argument.
Very good! That actually reminds me of a similar story from a very well known sportscaster in my country who specialty was, say, rugby. One night he was on duty when a call came in from someone trying to settle a argument about soccer, something like which team had won the most soccer league titles A or B.
He replied that he wasn't an expert but he was pretty sure it was team A. Silence on the line, then the voice came back asking Is that Joe Bloggs?, he replied that it was and then the voice said and what the fuck would you know about it? and hung up.
This is the origin of the Guinness book of records: Guinness sent it to pubs as a fun advertising gimmick.
In the days of poor information diffusion I guess content marketing was even more important than today: the Michelin Guide was similar: the tyre company wanted to encourage people to drive more, and figured the guide book would not only help with that but people would have the name Michelin in front of them. Hence the star ranking (go if you’re in town; if you’re in the area, worth diverting your trip a bit; worth making a special trip).
I actually used to jokingly call the iPhone “the destroyer of bar bets” but after a year or so on the market those discussions had pretty much died off, so maybe it wasn’t a joke.
My children are still baffled about how we researched things before Google.
And I'm saddened when I have to say "Well, we went to the library, and we hoped their encyclopaedia wasn't too racist".
In fact, as a kid I learned to use certain countries as a sort of metric of an encyclopaedia's relevance - if it discussed Rhodesia in the current tense, be very careful with anything else in it.
I've seen ducks mating. For their body size, they have magnificent penises. Flying with these things flopping around would not only be very difficult without getting caught in something, it would also be extremely irritating to people.
From the Goodreads blurb: ”a novel focused on the letters exchanged between Tina, a hardworking farm wife of three children and a museum curator and widower named Anders in Denmark. Their unlikely correspondence begins when Tina's seeks more information about the museum's most famous exhibit.”
Who remembers literally having to remember dozens of phone numbers off the top of your head? With no internet to look it up one would either have to have a phone book handy or remember numbers in your head. Which is funny because one of the main numbers I remember learning was the movie theater movie line where you could get info about what movies where playing.
I find it hard to recall a contact number today. We get to use names, so that skill drops off quick.
Growing up, we had a wall mounted phone with an insane cord. Something like 15 to 20 feet so people could take a call and walk into the adjacent room.
One day, I wrote an important number next to the phone on the wall, and it started! Mom asked about it, and said something about writing on the wall being bad. I said something about the difference, because it is easy, right there, won't get lost..
She then put the school, family, few other things next to it.
Instant buy in! I remember feeling good about that, like we did something that matters and was unorthodox.
I took one last look at it before moving out and into my life:
There it was. Our lives on the wall next to the phone. That pizza place, family, services, church, schools, friends, and other bits: birthdays, various identifiers, locations.
When I left, that on the wall directory was damn near a square meter!
A phone book was right below on a little stand. Actually two: the local one, very small. And the yellow pages. Huge.
One day, my brother drank gasoline! I was the only one home and sure enough! The little green poison control sticker was on that wall, next to the phone. Called them and they told me what to do, until someone could respond.
Seattle Public Library has this. You can even chat with them online. (I'm not linking to it because I'm not sure they want the attention.)
My friend works there. She loves interesting questions -- probably even about penises. Unfortunately she says a lot of old folks use it just ease their loneliness and to ask tech support questions.
In the early 00s there were a number of text services providing the same function. I got banned from one for the questions "What is the collective noun for a clitoris?" and "What is the resonant frequency of a clitoris?"
The Berkeley, California Public Library used to have an "after-hours reference librarian" on duty in the late 1970s or so. You could call up in the evening and ask them a question.
I remember once calling and asking how much Vitamin C was in an orange, waiting on hold for a minute or two, and then getting the answer.
I was aware of the cloacas, but I didn't know that some birds do have penises, so thanks for that important info! BTW some mammals (notably cats and dogs) also "store" their penises when not mating...
My Mum was a big fan of it, I've still got a copy of their telegram response to her question of "Why don't we see birds flying overhead with a penis flopping around?"
The answer was simple.
"Most birds don't have penises. They press cloaca to cloaca. Birds that do have penises store them in their bodies when not mating. Please stop sending questions about penises"
...it wasn't her first animal penis question submitted, and I'm assuming she'd developed a reputation.