A long time ago, before the internet's glorious tubes brought us all the cats and boobs we could ever want, people used to go to the library for info.
When confused patrons couldn't find what they were looking for in books, they'd often ask the librarians.
At the New York Public Library, each query was written down on an index card and filed away.
Some were serious.
Some were...not.
Some are oddly still very prescient.
A few other mysterious queries: How about "Can mice throw up?"
"What percentage of all bathtubs in the world are in the U.S.?"
And "What does it mean when you dream of being chased by an elephant?"
“In a world pre-Google,” reads a caption on NYPL’s Instagram, “librarians weren’t just Wikipedia, they were people’s Craiglist, Pinterest, Etsy, and Instagram all rolled into one.”
