Yeah, the real difference is the lag factor. Librarians, teachers, parents, etc. were great at answering random questions. But, often you'd wonder something and there wouldn't be someone around who you could ask. If it was important you could write it down or try to remember to ask later. But, these days you can satisfy any idle question in seconds without disturbing anybody.

I also think misinformation is awful, and in some ways the modern Internet plus AI is making the problem worse. What I hope they do is transition schools from places where kids memorize facts to places where kids learn critical thinking. Some of the key things I learned at some point in school were how to properly estimate something, and how various units work so you can cross check your answer. So, for example, a Joule is a kg m^2 / s^2 . If the units you're using don't match up, you must have screwed up somewhere. I also took a course in argument analysis once, that helped spot common fallacies.

I have the impression that as time goes on, being able to remember facts is going to be less and less important. And, learning technical skills (like how to search the web, use a spreadsheet, create a database, etc.) is going to be so easy that it's not something worth teaching. But, what will be important is knowing how to spot bullshit.

I dunno every time I spoke to a librarian they were either super unhelpful or just plain dismissive.

'hello, I'm trying to find information on the Inventor of the Volt, Alessandro Volta' 'look in the autobiography section' 'i couldn't find anything there' 'ok fine I'll look, here you clearly didn't look properly go find this book - the life of Voltaire' 'that's a different person though ..' 'it's just a different spelling' 'no they're different people' 'well that's all we've got so read it and see' 'but...' 'we're closing soon sorry I don't have time for more questions'

Not everyone had access to libraries in the first place and at least half the librarians were awfull at their job or awfull people, and they'd never help you with anything even slightly complex anyway even the good ones. I found more information about Volta while writing this comment to check the spelling of his name than my local and city library had buried in all their many volumes.

Yes libraries were fantastic and important before the internet, but the reason they're merging into social places and community centres is because we still have use for those (previously forbidden) uses but for research they're basically pointless now.