One of my favorite patron stories involves an older woman who was struggling valiantly to use the public computers which at that time had an inkjet printer at each computer. I have a lot of patience for those who are truly trying to understand how to do things, and I've become very good at keeping a poker face for some of their false assumptions or odd questions. But this one nearly broke me.
Patron: I think the printer is out of ink.
Me: Oh, did you print something and notice a white streak?
Patron: (points at the computer monitor) No, see how faded that word is there?
I don't think she believed me when I tried to explain that the monitor didn't use the same ink as the printer.
Becki White, MLS
Reference Librarian
Reference Dept.
Pottsville Free Public Library
215 W Market St
Pottsville, PA 17901-4304
ph: 570-622-8880 ext 11
fx: 570-622-2157
potref@pottsvillelibrary.org
www.pottsvillelibrary.org
www.facebook.com/PottsvilleFreePublicLibrary/
I received this question once: "Is this the same internet I get at home?"
Astrid Demont
Is it points to ponder or ponds to pointer?
Anyway, my favorite reference transaction happened at the William S. Richardson Law School on Honolulu. A student from an undergraduate program from the Manoa campus wanted to do a paper on labor law and came in to use one of the BNA services. I showed him where the case reporters and looseleafs were.
He asked, "How can I find a case I can use?"
I showed him the index volume and said that this would guide him to an article on his subject and the article would give him all the cases he'd need.
"I don't want to use the index," he answered. "I could spend all day in the index! I'll just look through these reporters."
I didn't really have an answer for that and sometimes patrons have to go their own way for a while before they are ready to do useful work. He spent about five minutes in the stacks and came back in triumph with a reporter open to the perfect case. He asked me how he could find more just like the one in his hands. I asked him how he managed to find this one and he answered, "I just flipped through a couple of books and this one opened to a perfect case. Now I need you to tell me how to find some more."
I was stunned and realized that I'd pretty much lost him in terms of teaching him how to use the materials. He in turn wandered off to flip open more reporters at random, obviously convinced of my lack of ability and professionalism.
Dennis
"You can never have too many mandolins."
dladd@swlaw.edu / (213) 738-6727
Dennis Ladd, Gov Docs
Southwestern University
School of Law Library
675 South Westmoreland Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90005
I can't resist sharing my story of the patron who called in and wanted to know how she could tell if her dog was dyslexic. I suggested she call her veterinarian, but I had to wonder what made her think that the dog was dyslexic. Maybe an obedience school dropout?
Cindy Roupe
cindyr@kslib.info
785-296-3296
State Library of Kansas
300 SW 10th Ave Rm 343-N
Topeka KS 66612
*************************************************
Everyone knows that the home key on your computer
is the one you push to get back to Kansas
*************************************************
One of my favorites was the community patron who insisted we find the part of the US Constitution which has been held a secret for years. Supposedly it contains provisions for understanding various tax policy disputes and so forth.
He called several times and came to the library at least once to scour our legal reference materials for the "lost", or rather, the secret, parts of the Constitution. I never really found out WHY there might be secret bits of the Constitution hidden someplace or WHO would want to keep these secrets from us.
If anyone knows where to find this information please let me know, since I can't seem to find a title, sudoc number, or virtually any reference to this dilemma....
Now onto more mundane things, like helping a patron locate the copy machines.
Bill Kenz
MN State University Moorhead
Since we are going beyond purely documents stories, I'd like to mention the student who came in during the last week of the semester to find out when his final exam would be. In order to find out, I needed to know the name of his professor. He did not know. This wouldn't be so bad, but the class he was taking was Newswriting, in the School of Journalism. I hope he made another career choice since then.
At another library, before word processing, we provided a few clunker typewriters, mainly electric, but including one manual. A student came to me, and said, "The manual typewriter isn't working. I don't think it's plugged in."
John Koch (jkoch@library.wisc.edu)
Reference Librarian/Documents Coordinator
Steenbock Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison
550 Babcock Dr.
Madison, WI 53706-1293
True story from another college where i used to work.
Reference desk.
College student: "Is Nicaragua in Europe?"
Me: "Uh, no. Nicaragua is in Central America."
CS: "Oh. Is Central America in Europe?"
I wish I had a video of my face...
Rob Lopresti
rob.lopresti@wwu.edu
Wilson Library
Western Washington U
Bellingham, WA
"Rats are gifted with charm, imagination, and generosity. " -U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
I have heard of a patron who is constantly coming into our library wanting PHOTOGRAPHS of the first people and she just doesn't understand why we don't have them! and then there's the guy who came in one day looking for plans on how to build a bridge from here (Buffalo, NY) to Africa! It takes all kinds
Andrew C Maines
To which I'll add a few true stories from a public library where I used to work. :-)
One day at the reference desk at St. Louis Public Library in the late 80s, a rather frazzled looking woman came up and said she needed to find pictures of dinosaurs for her son's research paper. I tactfully avoided lecturing her about doing her son's research for him, and since these were the pre-Intenet days, I started pulling some encyclopedias, etc. to look for pictures. I kept bringing her sources and she kept rejecting them. Finally she said, "These are all just drawings. Don't you have any real pictures?" It turned out she wanted *photographs* of dinosaurs. :-)
I had to gently explain that cameras hadn't been invented yet during that time period. I valiantly resisted the urge to point out that even humans hadn't been invented yet during that time period.
Another day I was working in the telephone reference department when a man called and asked if I could tell him the dimensions of Elvis Presley's coffin. I think his goal was to calculate Elvis' weight at the time of his death. I can't recall what I actually told the man, but I do remember I was sorely tempted to say that I could probably give him the location of the coffin, but that he'd have to go measure it for himself. :->
Lori Smith (985) 549-3966
Government Documents Department Head
Sims Memorial Library
Southeastern Louisiana University
SLU 10896 LSMITH@SELU.EDU
Hammond, LA 70402
Lori's dinosaur picture story reminded me of a question we got several years ago: "Do you have a copy of the music played at the Last Supper?" (preferably with flute accompaniment!)
Here are some other gems from our kooky questions file, a list started by the late Ellen Snyder, former Wisconsin Documents librarian at the Racine Public Library.
Happy summer!
Pat Ehlert
Racine Public Library
I was at one of the local indian ruins a while back and one of the site markers explained how archaeologists could date ruins. I heard a couple of elderly women talking about how the site could be dated. One of them said, "I think they count the rocks." (To get the full benefit of this, you have to imagine a desert setting that consists mainly of dirt, scrub brush, and hundreds and hundreds of rocks.) My best guess is that she had confused counting tree rings with carbon dating. I had to go behind a bush and laugh till my sides hurt.
Susan Cromby
Library Technical Assistant
City of Mesa Library
Mesa, AZ 85201-6768
Susan_Cromby@ci.mesa.az.us
and another one...
Way back when the first Indiana Jones movie came out, I was working at the Library of Congress. My colleagues in the Prints and Photographs Division sighed almost every day about the calls they got asking for photographs of the Ark.
Yes, some of them were from newspapers...
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Speaking of the Ark. As a public librarian I was asked to provide a picture of Jesus on the cross. When I provided several artist's rendering, the women replied that she wanted the actual photograph of Jesus on the cross. I tried to explain that cameras were not yet invented back then, but she walked away in a huff, muttering that I must be a new librarian.
J. Bolte
John J. Wright Library
La Roche College
Jacqueline Bolte
My favorites are the students who wanted the New York Times articles on the Salem Witch trials.
Followed closely by the person who after being told that the periodicals on microforms were arranged alphabetically asked if we could explain that. I barely resisted singing the alphabet song.
Jane Cramer
Brooklyn College Library
One that comes to mind for me is a reporter doing a piece on WWI. He needed pictures, so I took him to the section with books on WWI. He looked through several books that I had found with what I thought were fairly good pictures of action during the war. He looked at me and asked if I could find color photos. He acted surprised when I told him that color film hadn't been perfected at that time.
We also had two gentlemen using legal resources to find out if the FHA loans were constitutional. They had borrowed money but didn't want to repay the loan. They both proudly told me that they didn't pay any income taxes and bought the gasoline for farm use so didn't pay the extra road taxes on that. I had to marvel at the fact the it was okay to use a state funded university and materials supplied by the state and federal government to do their research!
Jo Anne Beezley
One of my favorites is the student who asked for how airplanes were used by Rome in its wars and when told they didn't have airplanes then asked about tanks.
In regard to #19 I would add the following possible causes of confusion. Does the patron want: whales or wales, courts and prisons or quartz and prisms, and youth in asia or euthanasia.
This has been a very enjoyable thread.
David Ockene
dockene@nypl.org
And while i have never had anyone ask for the secret part of the Constitution I have had people come in with scribbled references to the secret section of the US Code that allows you to mail letters without stamps.
Rob Lopresti "Desperate times call for desperate analogies." -John Diamond
Wilson Library
Western Washington U rob.lopresti@wwu.edu
Bellingham, WA http://www.library.wwu.edu/cbl/rob/rob.htm
