Who Needs Google? Students Still Use Phone Hotline

Before there was Google or any other search engine, there was a phone-based information hotline at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. It was set up 40 years ago to control rumors at a time when the campus was embroiled in racial violence and anti-war protests. The student union was firebombed in 1970, the same year violence erupted at Kent State University. A few months after the union burned, two teens were shot and killed at the University of Kansas — and there was a citywide curfew. Like other campuses across the country, the University of Kansas set up a hotline to try to quell rumours, says historian Doug Harvey. Surprisingly, the hotline is still being used today