What did we do before the Internet?

As I was subwaying in today, I was listening to some tunes and thinking abou the first album I ever owned (Hammer's Please Don't Hurt 'Em). I then thought of the number of people, back in 1990, that knew he sampled Rick James' Superfreak. Probably very few and even fewer could ever find out, unless they read a review in Rolling Stone or caught a Hammer interview on the news. So, how did people find out tidbits of information like that prior to the Web?

I realize it wasn't the dark ages - we still had TV, books, Nintendo, malls, museums, CDs, etc. But in terms of finding out little things, the only way I remember was the encyclopedia. And mine came out in 1986 so it didn't have anything recent. We were able to find out movie times (newspaper) and a local plumber (yellow pages), but all that other stuff was a mystery, unless you happened to know someone who knew or who caught a TV episode with said info.

It's almost scary how much we rely on Google, etc. these days. What new-fangled gizmo will the next generation have?