Without Internet?

Lately we have been doing a lot of group projects with French students. Things go a little bit differently here with people doing research for the papers and information that correlates with these projects. In the States we would definitely use the internet to find information, but usually we would use a database site such as the one that we have through school to find reputable journals or articles to cite. Here? They have no such database. Or if they do, no one uses it. Instead we just google everything. Not sure that'd fly at home. They are virtually obsessed with "searching" for information and using it on papers and in projects. It can't have been this way for long as the internet has only existed for so long...so how did the French students find their information and write papers before the internet? They had to think things through...right?
Another thing I'm sure wouldn't fly is the rampant copying and pasting from internet sites and other people that goes on here. I'm amazed really. It is a totally foreign concept to me. But "sharing" information is not discouraged here. I was talking to a guy in my group the other day about an assignment we had to do. We were supposed to read a short case and then use supporting articles to write our thoughts on the questions. He asked me if I had done the case and what I wrote about. I said I had. He asked me if I copied and pasted from other articles. I told him I hadn't, that I thought about what I was writing and put down my own ideas, but with support from the article. His response? Obviously someone else has thought about the topic a whole lot and written an article about it, so why should I think about it some more?

Right.