Hot take: library research beats google searches for local history

I was looking up my neighborhood's old name from the 1920s for a project. Google kept giving me real estate sites and blog posts with no sources. So I walked into the downtown library and asked a reference librarian named Carol. She pulled out a bound city directory from 1923 and there it was, clear as day. Has anyone else found old school research methods just work better for certain things?

3 comments

3 Comments

ruby6593d ago

Ngl my friend spent hours online for old census data and a librarian found it in like five minutes.

spencer_gonzalez13d ago

Wait, seriously? Your friend spent hours online doing all that digging and a librarian just snapped their fingers and found it? That's wild to me, but honestly not surprising at all (librarians are basically wizards with databases, you know?). I've heard stories like this before where people think they can out-research a pro and end up wasting a whole afternoon. It's kind of wild how much information is actually tucked away in places that only them or archivists really know about. Makes me want to just go ask a librarian first next time I need to find something obscure instead of burning my whole day.

logan_wood2d ago

Librarians are honestly underrated... I read somewhere they train for years just to master obscure databases.