Desk Set: Back Then, The Future Was Now
by Karen Tortora-Lee on May 21, 2010
We’re going to start this review off with a quiz to illustrate a point. What’s the title of the poem that begins “By The Shores Of Gitche Gumee?” Go ahead, I’ll wait while you find out for me.
Back so soon? And your answer? That’s right. “The Song of Hiawatha” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. And just about how long did it take you to find out the answer? Well, if you were like me you typed the title into Google, hit “search” and in .29 seconds (that’s literally the blink of an eye) not one, not two but 27,800 results were at your finger tips. You could have the text of the poem itself, the Wikipedia entry that gives the history of the poem, the 1996 novel by Tama Janowitz, a link to amazon.com where you can buy the Janowitz book if you wanted to, or some videos from YouTube.
What in the world did we we do before Google? Easy. Before Google there were Gals . . . or more precisely there was The Desk Set: Bunny Watson, head librarian of the reference department at the International Broadcasting Company, and her team of librarians. These gals were equipped with an encyclopedic knowledge of everything from batting averages to the names of Santa’s reindeer. And they’d give it to you in . . . well . . . the blink of an eye.
