Can you expand on how a card catalog improved the world? As a kid I used the card catalog a lot, both the physical version and the later electronic versions. Full text search definitely leads to pulling in information from a wider selection of sources.

I remember a lot of stratification of news sources pre-Google (which news channel you watched, which papers/magazines you read). Did Google cause reliance on one source of information, or does Google simply exist in a world where people tend towards echo chambers? How would Alta Vista have improved that?

I think the curious crazy tid bits are still there.