Refer Madness – Page 2

Refer Madness: PB & A

Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk.

Here’s an interesting one that came to the desk: the PseudoBulbar Affect. (Pseudo “false” + Bulbar, referring to the brainstem.)

A patron said she had it and was looking for some scholarly information about it. According to PBAinfo.org, PBA occurs when “certain neurologic diseases or brain injuries damage the areas in the brain that control normal expression of emotion. This damage can disrupt brain signaling, causing a ‘short circuit’ and triggering involuntary episodes of crying or laughing.”

These outbursts can be inappropriate (spontaneous crying or laughing when neither are warranted) and exaggerated (more intense or larger than the situation merits). Common causes include traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s or dementia, stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, and Lou Gehrig’s disease.

The first reference to PBA is credited to the Charles Darwin, in his 1872 book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, and it’s in the kind of language that sounds crass now to our more medically enlightened ears: “We must not, however, lay too much stress on the copious shedding of tears by the insane, as being due to the lack of all restraint; for certain brain-diseases, as hemiplegia, brain-wasting, and senile decay, have a special tendency to induce weeping.”

The more you know.

November 27, 2015 Add Comment

Refer Madness: The Library Lives of Others

Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk.

Earlier this year I started keeping a list of things people have asked me at the library information desk. It’s not totally comprehensive: some questions either aren’t noteworthy (“Where’s the bathroom?”) or slipped my mind during a busy rush. But even as a scattershot sample, it’s an interesting snapshot of what people care about.

Here are the ten most recent items on the list people have asked me for or wondered about:

Introduction to Academic Writing by Alice Oshima et al
Casper DVD
Halloween DVD
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
Cars For U.S. Troops phone number
History of Monroney stickers on new cars
The Court and the World by Stephen Breyer
Stonewall Uprising documentary
My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

So we have five books of diverse genres, three very different movies, one phone number request, and one reference question I was able to find info on pretty quickly (and learn about myself). A more accurate representation would have more requests for phone numbers and addresses, but it still gives you an idea of the kinds of things people ask a total stranger for.

And that’s what I’ve found so intriguing and invigorating about my public library jobs thus far into my short career. Aside from the regulars whose desires you can pretty well anticipate as they approach, when a person walks up to the desk I have no idea what they’re gonna ask. So when people ask how my job is going, I can legitimately say that every day is different, and I like that. I appreciate the trust people put in me as the guy behind the desk to get them what they need. And I don’t want to jeopardize that trust by blowing them off, judging their requests (openly anyway), or getting them bad information.

Because it’s their lives we’re dealing with. I’ve written before about how I’ve come to view libraries as sanctuaries and the librarian as a kind of secular pastor. Indeed, the info desk can sometimes feel like a confession booth, which patrons approach with every conceivable attitude: frustrated by their inability to find something, ashamed in the asking of it, happy to be getting help at all, and so on. Whatever they throw at me, I have to be ready to respond accurately, with patience and grace when applicable. Librarians have to do a lot of different things, but good public service is and should be number one.

October 8, 2015 Add Comment

Refer Madness: Librarians Advisory

Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk.

If you’re a librarian, it’s likely you’re expected to provide readers advisory. (Or is it reader’s?) Every librarian has his or her own area of expertise and blind spots, but whether through direct knowledge or other resources, you’re supposed to be able to give patrons who ask some reliable recommendations on what to read, watch, listen to, or do. This happens fairly regularly at a public library and is, as the NFL puts it, a “major point of emphasis.”

Less common, but just as valuable, is when patrons advise librarians. Last week a man came to the desk looking for the album Trio by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris. He said the catalog said it was in, but he couldn’t understand the CD labeling. I tracked it down and explained the labeling system (MC for country, MJ for jazz, etc.—I can see his point…). He thanked me for finding it and said, “Have you ever heard this?” I hadn’t. “Their voices blend so well. Check it out sometime.”

So I did, and he was right: it’s a beautiful record (with hilarious hair) that got nominated for Album of the Year in 1987. I’m not a pop-culture elitist, but it’s important to be reminded that just because librarians get paid to make recommendations doesn’t mean we’re right, or that other people who didn’t get a library degree can’t do it well either.

July 13, 2015 Add Comment

Refer Madness: Pole Stars

Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk.

Summer is finally (almost, sorta) here. “Bees they’ll buzz / Kids’ll blow dandelion fuzz…” The AC is on at the library, but at the ref desk it’s still a bit muggy. The perfect time for this patron question: Do you have any books about polar explorers?

Ummm, OK… Perhaps he was like me in wanting to forestall the coming Midwestern mix of heat and humidity, if only in our dreams. The first choice you have to make when on an expedition for books about polar expeditions is whether you’re in for something perilous, or something (relatively) pleasant. Alfred Lansing’s Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage (not, I’m disappointed to learn, a sequel to Homeward Bound) is a respected account of that famous first and successful British voyage to Antarctica. And the photo book Call of the North captures the lives of the Inuit by the first Frenchman to reach the North Pole by dogsled.

But if you like your polar expeditions tragic, last year’s In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides will do the trick. There’s also a book literally called The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, which recounts the final icecapades of the explorer Robert Falcon Scott, whose name—let’s be honest—could only be that of an ice-cold voyager.

Stay cool, friends.

June 8, 2015 Add Comment

Refer Madness: Let Your Free Flag Fly

Refer Madness is a new feature that spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk.

The patron is a regular. He usually asks for pictures of movie stars or the address of a celebrity he can send a picture to for an autograph. (The V.I.P. Address Book makes that pretty easy.) One time we looked up the schematics of the Ghostbusters proton pack so he could make one at home. But this time he came in with a more abstract question: Does the American flag stand for freedom or does it stand for communism?

I quickly surmised his question was rhetorical. He hadn’t talked politics with me before, but political patron pontification—ask any librarian—is as old as Melvil Dewey. Customer service circumstances like these almost always call for the ol’ reliable smile-and-nod, so I pulled that out as I led him to Saga of the American Flag: An Illustrated History by Candice DeBarr and The Care and Display of the American Flag. They won’t help him ward off the Red Menace, but they have pretty pictures, so he has that going for him, which is nice.

June 2, 2015 Add Comment