Tag: Refer Madness
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Refer Madness: Various Vignettes
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy stories from the library reference desk. Since transitioning to a new position at work last year, I’m no longer on the reference desk. (Also the library is currently closed due to COVID-19, so there’s that.) But I didn’t want to let my list of ideas for this…
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Refer Madness: Buyers and Borrowers
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. A patron walked into the library and approached the desk. “I was just at a bookstore but I didn’t want to buy too many,” she told me. She had a list of books she wanted, some of which she got at the bookstore but…
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Refer Madness: Librarian as Point Guard
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. On Tuesday I hosted a discussion at the library on the films of 2018. It was an informal time to swap favorites (or least favorites) from the year, and discuss the Oscar nominations that had just been announced. Opinions abounded, of course. I brought…
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Refer Madness: Always on call
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. You know how doctors are always on call? Someone has a heart attack on an airplane or chokes at a restaurant, and doctors, nurses, or other care providers jump to the rescue, even if they are off the clock. Even medical students count: I…
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Refer Madness: Hate the change, love the library
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. A while back, my department’s email received this message: “What happened to the CLASSIC CATALOG? I am old, I hate change, but love my library. Thanks.” I had to laugh. Funny but dead serious, succinct and self-aware, this missive captures a very real conundrum:…
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Refer Madness: How to pay your library back
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. A regular came to the desk with the George Carlin Commemorative Collection DVD she was returning. “Before I return this,” she said, “I’d like to know how much it was for the library to buy because you bought it based on my request but…
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Refer Madness: The Book Dropper strikes again
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. A few months ago, a coworker and I noticed that every Tuesday, two items appear on the library’s book sale shelves that shouldn’t be there. The library has a system for what gets placed in the book sale, so we know which items are…
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Refer Madness: Could be home, doing nothing
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. In my library, one of the information desks sits in a high-traffic area where all the activity from the entrance, auditorium, elevator, and stairs to Youth Services converge. One result of this configuration is that whoever is at the desk (and anyone in the…
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Refer Madness: A String of Beeps
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. I was on the phone with a patron when I heard it: that incessant beep the copier makes when something goes wrong. Once I finished with the patron on the phone, I went over to see what was the matter. This time it was…
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Refer Madness: The Worst Thing
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. Some days on the desk are rough. Challenging patrons, technical difficulties, a case of the Mondays—whatever the issues are, like sneezes and football sacks they often come in bunches to create a day that’s better forgotten. This was not one of those days. First,…
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Refer Madness: A Patron Mount Rushmore
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. [Note: this was originally published at Booklist.] In the office one day, my colleagues got to discussing who our library’s Mount Rushmore of patrons would be. Not necessarily the nicest ones but the ones who have become iconic among staff largely because of the…
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Refer Madness: Making Converts
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. One of the best things about having a digital media lab in my library is introducing eager patrons to what it provides. Since ours opened two years ago, the most popular feature by far is the converting software that transfers analog media to digital,…
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Refer Madness: Word Nerd
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. [Note: This was originally published in Booklist‘s Top Shelf Reference newsletter.] There’s an older woman, a regular at my library, who comes to the desk with many different questions but saves the crossword ones for me. This delights me greatly. I am by no…
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Refer Madness: Finding Angels
Almost two years ago I started writing about strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk, in a series I call Refer Madness. My latest one, titled “Finding Angels,” is debuting over at Booklist, as part of the latest issue of “Top Shelf Reference” newsletter. I’ll continue Refer Madness here, but hope…
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Refer Madness: Thanks, Man
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. Coming out of a recent concert at the library, an elderly man asked if we had a calendar of events he could take home. I showed him where they were on the shelf, and as I was about to return to the desk, he started talking.…
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Refer Madness: Future Scientist?
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. A mom was looking for her middle-school daughter’s next book. She said her daughter had loved The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and “all the Holocaust stuff.” But she wanted her to discover some real people as well. My first thought was the young…
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Refer Madness: Playing Favorites
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. Every librarian has favorite patrons. Like parents we aren’t supposed to admit it, but it’s true. My favorites have developed because of how nice they are, for their interesting requests, or for their particular outlook on life. One of my favorites is an older woman, a regular,…
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Refer Madness: The Terminator of Ghent
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. A gentleman called the desk with a pretty simple question: What was the release date of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines? Because of my prodigious ability to remember useless trivia (film-related especially), I knew it was 2003. But he wanted the specific release date,…
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Refer Madness: A Name that Named Names
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. A patron who calls regularly — usually looking for the value of an old book or baseball card — had a pretty direct question for me today: “Was Lee J. Cobb blacklisted?” Nope, but just barely. Born Leo Jacoby (get it? Lee J. Cobb[y]?), Cobb…
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Refer Madness: England Murder Bicycle Chemistry
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. During an otherwise quiet evening on the desk, someone messaged my co-librarian on our library’s chat service with a specific, but not quite specific enough, request. She wanted the title and author of a book in a murder mystery series, published post-2000. She then…