1982: I need to find information to solve a problem. I go to the local library, call up some professors, write to a hobbyist magazine, crack open an encyclopedia, etc.
Today: I need to find information to solve a problem. I go to [insert preferred search engine here], punch in some search terms, and learn what I need from the results. This much was accomplished long before Google came along. Certainly, Google made this a lot better, but they were definitely not the ones that started it all.