this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2025
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There were literally phone numbers you could call and someone at a library would look up the answer to your question. In like, a day or so. And call you back with the info.
I want this job so bad. Do you know how much I know but never get asked about! I have to inflict it apon people to get it out ofy system.
Pfft, I bet you can't even tell me one interesting thing about minerals
Does Bronze count as a mineral for these purposes? If so did you know that the earliest form of bronze was arsenical and that large amount of copper deposits used during the copper and bronze age were contaminated by arsenic. This is probably what resulted in early blacksmiths being shamans, because they poisoned themselves while making their tools and went crazy.
I'll allow it, because A. interesting. and B. I can use my preplanned response:
Can the trap be a glacier? I want future archeologists to dissect my corpse much like how Ötzi who was probably a metal shaman based off of his tools and how far travelled he was. Though he was most likely a very early example, also he was most likely murdered.
Interesting exception: in North America around the Great Lakes, pure native copper was widely available at the surface due to the ice sheets exposing underground deposits when they advanced/retreated.
The Great lakes copper complex also used cold forging which avoids the issues of vaporization. Can't have your brain melted by vaporized materials if you never melt it down or cast it, though thats only possible due to the relative purity of the more veins.
Also the Great lakes copper complex most likely kicked off due to the collapse of trade routes making getting good quality stone for tools a right pain in the ass.
I thought mercury was more likely for causing those "issues."
While that may have been an issue for some the sheer amount of arsenic bronze artifacts kinda points in the direction of it being the arsenic. Mercury was more of an issue for later cultures who used it for makeup or other sundries, or alchemists and Medicare but they played around with questionable materials all the time.
Here's a cross-over mineral and biology:
Teeth are not bone. They are made of a variety of the mineral apatite called hydroxyapatite (fluoride treatment converts some of it into fluorapatite, which has stronger chemical bonds).
Further, apatite is a homophone for appetite but they come from completely different root words.
They're rocks, Marie!
... Wait, that's not right.
Yeah, I bet their apple knowledge isn't up to snuff either.
New York Public Library! [video]
I have a friend who works for a library. They still offer this service. I don't think anyone under the age of 70 has used it in some time.
my first job ever was at a library. dewey decimal system anyone?
I worked in my college library, so no we didn’t use the Dewey decimal system.
Wow, seriously?
Imagine how many people actually call from a smartphone their kids bought them.
We texted Chacha (242242) when I was in high school. It just sent the question to some dude on their computer who looked up the answer and texted you back. I still have no idea how they made money.
That's the neat part, they didn't.
They wanted to pivot to ads, or paid subscriptions, but neither revenue stream really materialized for them.
Google had a text to search service, too, that didn't make money, but turned out to be pretty valuable user data for developing smarter semantic search.
There used to be an address at some university and you could mail them photographs of insects and they would tell you what those insects were.
Usually it would turn out to be a beetle of some kind.
But what if the game show only gives me 30 seconds
Kinda live on too
Your local library will help or (US, national)
Library of Congress: ask.loc.gov
That would have been such a fun job to have