BEFORE GOOGLE THERE WAS...

Before Google there was...

For my ‘before Google’ archive search, I wondered up the third floor of Woodruff and looked at the archival documents on display for the exhibit that was currently up. So my experience of ‘going into archives’ was different in comparison to going to the Rose library to find a document. Based on what I heard from others, it seems that I may have gotten the ‘easy’ way out of it, not having to search too hard and long for an interesting topic (which may have been the ultimate purpose of this assignment, to prove a point of the differences before google). But regardless, I still found a few super interesting documents that I never would have otherwise seen. As a bonus, there were tags in front of the documents that were able to explain to me what the archives were about, just as a google gives you a general definition when you google a word or topic. In this way, I saw parallels between archives displayed in museums and google searches, just with different levels in the ease of searching.

The documents I found were pamphlets and propagandas circulated for countercultural movements by the Yippies and Diggers in the 1980s. To me, these documents display a version of ‘activism’ or ‘propaganda’ for movements before the ease of the Internet and Google for quick and easy dissemination. These documents are comparable to print media that is still circulated in many cities, states, and countries surrounding topics ranging from social activism, politics, education, and reform, to name a few. So as these archives display a mode of social activism prior to the internet and google, they also pose as a reflection in the evolution of print media, the evolution of activism, and changes in formatting, styles, and functions of print media.

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