My favorite question came from a frustrated patron as I passed through the bound periodicals "Why do you have so many books with the same title?"
And I didn't laugh.
"Hall, Georgia Ann"
When I was a student in college at the University of Missouri-Columbia, I worked at the circulation desk which was at the entrance of the library. We fielded lots of directional questions for both the library and the rest of the campus. We actually had people ask us where the library was.
Jane DeBellis
University of West Florida
Thanks to whoever started this line of discussion, I've enjoyed reading all the submissions.
I get asked "do you work here?" every single day, sometimes when I'm sitting in my office typing away on my computer. When somebody asks me that, I just figure that what they're really saying to me is: "You're so slender and youthful-looking, you could easily be mistaken for an undergraduate doing research. It's hard to believe you've been a librarian for 25 years."
Mark Anderson
One of my former library school professors said back in the old days before automation while standing in the midst of the the card catalog section (big library — rows and rows of cabinets full of hundreds of drawers) he had someone ask him "Where's the card catalog?" At the opposite end of this is a small public library in a small town ~ remember signing your name to a card in order to check out a book? (Okay, we just dated ourselves...) If you ever worked circulation you'll know the cards were (and in some libraries still are) kept by due date in call number order behind the desk. So when filing a stack of cards you sorted them out by call number before sticking them into the file. A number of years ago in said small town a patron complained to city hall about the librarian at said library playing cards behind the desk - obviously a waste of taxpayer money... You can probably guess this one - she was sorting the cards for checked out books, of course.
Barbara McCormack-Dunfee
Devereaux Library
SDSM&T
Rapid City, SD 57701
All of these are pretty good, and most ring a bell. But one I haven't yet seen mentioned, so I thought I'd do so! I wish I had a quarter (inflation!) for each time I have been asked, "Where is the Basement?"
Karen Nordgren
Assistant Professor
Government Documents Librarian,
Reference and Instruction Library Services
White Library Emporia State University
(Dep. #0204) 1200 Commercial - Box 4051
Email: nordgrek@emporia.edu
