Before There Was Google, Librarians Answered All Of Our Weird Questions
“I’ll Google it.” Whatever the question, the trusty internet is there with the answer. Why is the sky blue? How do I make the perfect pavlova? Can you die from a hangover? All valid queries. But who was there to provide answers to our burning questions before the days of Google and Wikipedia? [Insert quick internet search here] ...Librarians! Thanks to the work of the New York Public Library (NYPL), who’ve painstakingly documented and stored the questions put to their staff from the 1940s to the ’80s, now we can see just how strange us humans really are!
How do I put up wallpaper?
One confused DIY-er sent this question to the NYPL during the ’40s. They wrote, “How do I put up wallpaper? I have the paper; I have the paste. What do I do next? Does the paste go on the wall or the paper? I’ve tried both and it doesn’t seem to work.”
If you’re wondering the answer yourself, here you go: you can technically do both, but back in the day the paste-the-paper option was easier! However, due to advances in paper technology, these days it’s recommended you paste the wall instead.
Veils at night time
Librarians of the past (and now!) didn’t just field questions about history and geography, they also often got asked about fashion and etiquette. This one for example reads, “Is it proper to wear a veil at night time?”
Who knows what answer this person was given, but perhaps the real answer should be: it doesn’t matter! If it’s your veil, you should wear it whenever and however you like! Admittedly it may impede your vision a little bit at night however.
Nutritional value of human flesh
The librarian who noted this down probably did so with a creeped-out feeling, because the question was regarding the “nutritional value of human flesh.” Oh, and it was asked on 6/6/58, a number not very far away from 666! The NYPL had a sense of humor about it, however.
They posted it to Instagram on October 31, 2017, and quipped, “Keep an eye out for any health-conscious zombies on the loose this Halloween!” By the way, eating human flesh can, in fact, kill you.
Number of squirrels
The modern-day internet has many drawbacks, but at least it has cute animal pictures. And people were, in fact, interested in those long before the internet, as this question from an anonymous person with perhaps a little too much time on their hands in 1976 proved.
This person asked, “Why do 18th century English paintings have so many squirrels in them, and how did they tame them so that they wouldn’t bite the painter?” The answer is sadly unrecorded.