While working on a piece called “The Doughnut Rebellion” for a Maine magazine recently, I needed help remembering how to spell that particular kind of Portuguese fried pastry that’s for some reason so popular in Hawaii.

These doughnuts are called “malassada,” and were certainly not in my dictionary, and no matter what spell-check thinks, they do exist and require that configuration of letters.

I found what I needed in about ten seconds, on the Internet.

As tempted as I am to identify as a neo-Luddite, with my wood fire and my lead pencil, I must agree the Internet is a huge help to writers for, if nothing larger, the confirmation of suspicions, the reinforcement of fading memories, the instant answer to questions too trivial to risk bothering somebody on the telephone (instant, of course, only if the system is in top-notch working order, which is not to be assumed. That’s a story for another day, and yes, I’m talking about high tide at Matinicus).

What did we do before the Internet?

No…I don’t mean how did we waste time in the office before there was on-line shopping or “Red versus Blue” (we made rubber-band balls and paper-clip chains). Not how did we keep up with pointless celebrity gossip, inter-office chatter, and sports scores (that was what the water cooler was all about).

I mean to ask, how did we get our peculiar little questions answered?

We went to the…dare I say it…reference librarian?

In the early 1980s, when I was a student at Bates College, the real Internet did not yet exist. There was some sort of linked-computer system through Dartmouth, such that with permission, a time-slot reservation and a password, we could get on a computer in a lab and engage in meaningless idle chatter with total strangers. Other than that, computers were for those who wanted to study programming, and wonders like Google were barely a glimmer in somebody’s eye.

Bates has a generous library and several very knowledgeable people who work the reference desk, but one of particularly good humor became a happy victim of a harmless sport called “Stump the Librarian.”

A few of us in those days endeavored to find the most off-the-wall inquiry, the most trivial queries which we might have legitimate need to know. Of course, our notion of “trivial” was based on our own limited experience. We hoped to find something obscure enough to cause this librarian some little consternation. As I recall, it never happened.

Once I walked up to the desk and blurted out “Brown-Forman, Distillers!”

In some research, I had found them mentioned in a funny old story from the late-1800s where a yokel orders up a jug of whiskey by mail. What did I know? The librarian hunted through something, and showed me that said company still exists, and in fact makes Jack Daniels. OK, no stumping today.

“Methyl ethyl ketone!”

I knew that substance only as something that goes into the Fiberglass resin in the boatyards, back where I lived. I hadn’t had much chemistry yet. The librarian found it right away, and showed me all the chemistry I needed.

“Tannu Tuva!”

Some small place mentioned by physicist Richard Feynmann once in a random anecdote about music. Yup, right here…Soviet Union. Just like the Internet, only with a smile and no advertising.

When my friend Allen, who was a theater-tech guy (these were the folks whom you would seek out in college should you need a wrench or a hammer, among the sea of Boston “preppies,”) happened to mention at supper one day that he “needed pictures of English basements,” I knew what we had to do.

This would be a perfect question with which to apply, straight-faced, to the reference librarian.

I contacted this librarian recently, and asked about the obvious changes in the job since the Internet search engine became such a ubiquitous part of life, not to mention homework and research. First, let me explain why I don’t name this patient academic here…the suggestion was made that those who might venture to speculate on the identity of this “good sport,” within the present and former Bates College community, should be made to do just that.

Regarding the computer, the librarian made it quite clear to me that there was still a difference between Internet research done by experienced people, who are not going to be suckered into believing everything they read on the screen, and many students or others who, lacking either trained discernment or any first-hand experience yet with online balderdash, may be more easily hoodwinked.

I would take this to mean that there is still plenty of good reason to inquire of the reference librarian.

Eva Murray, of Matinicus, is a 1985 graduate of Bates College and contributor to Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors magazine. E-mail her at [email protected].