My all-time favorite technical question is:
"Can you help me photocopy my face?"
It seems the petitioner was involved in a frat-house scavenger hunt, and needed to bring in a photcopy of his face. When he put his face on the copy machine, there was too much light leakage to get a good copy. He also couldn't find the start button in that position. Together we found that if he put his face down and then put his jacket over his head and the screen, he was able to get a usable photocopy for his purposes.
Mark Anderson
A few years ago, I made an attempt to help an over-pampered freshman with a research paper. After about 10 minutes of explaining the basic research process, she looked at me disinterested and said, "You wouldn't know of someone who might write a paper for $50."
I told her as calmly as I could that this was unethical, went against the Honor Code and could get her in a lot of trouble.
She said, "How about $75?"
Daniel Blazek
Head, Government Information and Special Formats Dept.
Otto G. Richter Library
University of Miami
Coral Gables, FL 33124
(305)284-3155
dblazek@miami.edu
During my weekend rotation on reference one Saturday an adult came to the reference desk and said she just traveled two hours to see a book we have in special collections. I had to tell her special collections was closed. She started to get angry, said the hours aren't on the webpage etc. Of course they were and she wasn't happy when I showed them to her. She then asked if there was a librarian on duty (I do look young I'll give her that) and I told her I was the librarian on duty. She then questioned me about why I didn't have a key, etc. This went on for awhile at last she asked if there was a way we could break in! At which point I told her I really liked my job and even IF there was a way, which there wasn't to my knowledge, I wouldn't do it because if I didn't get fired, the AD for Archives would kill me.
It was extrememly hard to keep a straight face.
Lisa Ennis
i had a student who had managed to end up in government documents for the first timebecause she was doing a research report on the history of the polio vaccination [she found a reference to a 1976 hearing since we had literally just loaded the MARCIVE tapes] ~ i pointed out that if she really wanted to get into some "history" sources within the gov docs collection, she could use the cumulative subject index to the MoCat and get some great references to Joseph Salk, polio, etc. from the "early days" of government research « she said, "it's not on the computer?" —
i said, "no, nothing prior to July 1976"
she said, "then, i'll just change my topic to AIDS" and confidently walked out of the department" — not realizing, that she would be returning at any moment
since it's a Friday, i'll save my story of the gentlemen who came every six months and would ask me for his FBI file since "you are a depository for the federal government"
cindi wolff
Project Manager
Wirtz Labor Library
200 Constitution Ave., NW, N-2445
Washington, DC 20210
wolff-cindi@dol.gov
202-693-6633/202-693-6644 [fax]
http://library.dol.gov
Okay, I have to put in my favorite story, which I hope doesn't offend anyone: when I was still a law librarian, a man came to the reference desk and asked me where he could find articles on religion and insurance; I was a bit puzzled, and asked him what he meant. He looked at me somewhat self-righteously, and said,"well obviously, if you're religious, you can't buy insurance, because that's gambling!"
Jan Goldsmith, UCLA
As we are discussing some favorite/unfavorite patrons, one of ours found a book on Amazon.com that we did not have in our library. He then kept pestering our librarian at the govdocs desk to use her personal credit card and order it. When that didn't work, he then went downstairs to the Reference desk and tried to get them to do the same thing. This same guy also didn't want to spend the cost of photocopying anything. Thus he would check out armloads of books, take them down to the Real-Estate Rental Office a friend of his owned (and where my wife worked as a receptionist) and photocopy everything for free down there.
This same patron also got in major trouble posing as an Illinois State Policeman with a prostitute, but eventually got pardoned by the Governor. Yet he still comes in to do a lot of legal research for this and other matters. He didn't earn any more points with me though, when he thought I was only a student worker!
Charles E. Malone, Unit Coordinator
Government and Legal Information Unit
University Libraries
Western Illinois University
1 University Circle
Macomb, IL 61455
(309)298-2719
c-malone@wiu.edu
