Browsing this reddit on a weekly basis, I was wondering if there have been "sites" like this one in the past? Of course, Sites means places, buildings or the likes where normal people could come and ask experts Questions regarding the past or other such topics. I am aware of Universitiy and places where people teach others, but I am strictly asking for places that are not like those.
Before the internet - and the academy aside - the obvious place was the reference desk at the local library. Reference librarians are fond of saying that they do not know everything, but they can find everything.
During my career administering a state historic preservation office (1883-2012) I noticed a shift that occurred in Northern Nevada. When studying at the local university, 1973-1981, there were five western and Nevada historians in the campus history department. Members of the press and others frequently (several times a week) called the main department number looking for someone who could answer a question, and in grad school, teaching assistants were frequently sent to “hunt up” an expert to answer the questions.
In the 1980s, these authorities began to retire or die, and they were replaced with anyone but a western historian. One or two remained, but increasingly, the press and the public began going to public historians for the answers. These included staff at state archives and records, the state historical society, and my agency. My colleagues and I noticed the shift, and by the late 1980s, I asked the department secretary at the university history department if she was receiving those kinds of question. She said that they had dwindled to rare occasions.
This is only a single example and cannot be taken as proof of a larger trend. The point here is that the questions from the media and public found a path and aligned itself with the available resources. It is easy, now, to take the internet for granted, but in a previous century, finding resources and the answers they had at their fingertips could be a challenge.
On a side note, the transition occurring on campus was happening even as the axiom, “publish or perish” was being replaced with a new sense of direction, “public or perish.” I worked closely with the state budget office and the “money” committees at the legislature, making many close friends, and there was an understanding about where the public was going for answers, which was reflected in shifts in funding. Now, with the internet, it is largely irrelevant.