A pair of tidbits: First is the first electronic bulletin board created in the '70s in (of all places) Leopold's Records in Berkeley (later bought by the Wherehouse, and even later closed and replaced by the neighboring Tower Records).

Next is Google's expansion of their Usenet search to posts from over 20 years ago. At over 700 million messages, it's the most comprehensive usenet library ever compiled.

Some notable posts in the new library are the first known use and explanation of emoticons (1982) (raise your hand in pride shame if you remember using 'J/K' to let people know you were 'just kidding' before the emoticon was invented), the first post to alt.religion.kibology (1991), the first thread about AIDS (1982), and a bunch of other pieces of collective net history that I'm so glad were saved after all.

My librarian/teacher friends (of which I recently realized are a staggering percentage) would be (are?) so proud.