Public Librarians discussion
Weirdness at the Reference Desk
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Rebecca
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May 07, 2013 02:53PM
This group needs a fun thread, so here it is. Share the weird questions you've answered, on the reference desk or off it.
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I'll start. I just finished a search for information on the chemical and medicinal properties and other uses of camel urine and camel dung. Who knew? But my all-time favorite remains the woman who wanted to know if you can buy diapers for pet chickens.
You can.
Hi - I'm Alexis, a retired librarian. Many years ago (way before the Internet), I had a middle schooler come into the branch wanting a picture of Jesus. When we got over to the books in the religion section he said what he was looking for was
Alexis again - fumble fingers sent off the post too soon. The middle schooler looked through the books and then asked if any of them had a photograph of Jesus.
LOL--took me a moment there! I bet you had trouble keeping a straight face!
Today I was asked what I think is the most insane thing I have aver been asked and it literally made my jaw drop. "Do you have any books based on the Harry Potter movies?"
I just had to ask the woman (a fully grown woman with a child in tow) what she meant, hoping she was looking for something with film stills or trivia. No, she simply did not know that Harry Potter was a book series before it was a movie. @_@
I was once asked if we had any books with photos of dinosaurs in them...
Oh, and last week I was asked for a book on any kind of "very very common land animal that a kindergartener would recognize." I suggested a book on cats and the lady said "no, I want a land animal, not a pet." @_@ In the same conversation she also insisted whales were fish and the sun revolved around the earth. And she was a teacher.
Someone needed the phone number for the Illinois Cremation Society one time...I learned that the slogan for said Society was "We think outside the box. O.OAlso, this message at 1 AM on a Sunday morning: "I have a very urgent question for the Reference desk. If you smoke too much, is it possible for your teeth to fall out?"
And then there was the patron who called the library to ask me (yes, he asked for me - by name - on the answering machine) to bail him out of jail.
Wow, Katie! Glad no one has asked that of me! I love the slogan, though.
A coworker was asked by a farmer who came into the library: "Do you have any books on poetry?" Roger said "Certainly," and led the guy back to the literature/poetry section. A few minutes later the guy comes back and tells Roger "No, I said poultry. You know, like fowl." It was the accent!!
About 10 years ago, a teenager came up to me with a photocopy of a page from a book and asked me "what book did this come from?" It had nothing on it other than the text of the page and the page number. It turned out he had been in the library a month earlier doing a research project and needed the book info for his bibliography. We retraced all his steps for his project and ended up finding the book -- But I have to say, when he first asked me the question, I looked around for Candid Camera...
I'm new to this group, and when I saw this thread, I decided I needed to join.We are having a food drive for a local shelter. Someone saw the sign and said "can you eat this peanut butter on wheat bread or is it just white bread?" This happened not ten minutes ago.
These are brilliant! I'm not sure it was the weirdest question I've ever had, but one guy wanted me to find an mp3 file for the Chicken Dance song so that he could send it to his phone and play it for his class, who apparently had never heard it.
These are all so strange, hahaha.The worst one for me so far was when I logged a woman onto the computer and showed her the timebar and said she had 58 minutes. She looked at me and said "how long is that?"
I died inside and then replied "about an hour," and walked away.
It takes a lot to beat that for me.
That's pretty good, Julie - though I think the peanut butter question was even better. You really have to wonder sometimes!
Love the peanut butter question! Maybe you can only eat Jif on white bread. You have to have natural pb for whole wheat.
I'm not a librarian but I worked several years at a bookstore, so I can totally relate to the ridiculousness the info desk endures. This is my new favorite thread. I'll never forget the people who came in looking for the blue book. No author, title, or subject. Not even an idea of the cover image.
Once I got smart-mouthed with an older woman and asked if I could interest her in a lovely shade of brown since we were fresh out of blues. It went over surprisingly well. I sold her Clan of the Cave Bears. lol
Andi-roo - Librarians get this *all* the time, and not only with recent books as you would in a book store. "I read a book when I was in high school and I'd really like to read it again. It was blue and it had a lot of pages...."
Lynn wrote: "Andi-roo - Librarians get this *all* the time, and not only with recent books as you would in a book store. "I read a book when I was in high school and I'd really like to read it again. It was blu..."Yes--but there's nothing like the triumph when they come out with just a few bits of the story and I managed to figure out which book they mean!
I have to say I love Amazon's search engine. While our library catalog insists on everything being exact, Amazon seems to be a mind reader, and if you get within about 10 miles of the correct title it pulls it up. I've pulled some great rabbits out of the hat that way.
That's because Amazon wants our money. I wonder if they realise how many librarians use them as a source of information more than a source of stuff to buy?
Lynn wrote: "That's because Amazon wants our money. I wonder if they realise how many librarians use them as a source of information more than a source of stuff to biuy?"I've wondered. They have totally replaced Books In Print. Anyone remember those?
Oh, wow. I totally forgot about that! Learned how to use Books in Print in my early days of working at an indie-owned bookstore and was super unimpressed with Borders for not utilizing it.
Andi-Roo wrote: "Oh, wow. I totally forgot about that! Learned how to use Books in Print in my early days of working at an indie-owned bookstore and was super unimpressed with Borders for not utilizing it."I learned about it in college, I think, or maybe grad school, hunting for references :)
Not the strangest question, I'm sure (even in my own history), just a dumbfounding one. Last week a customer asked me to help her with the elevator because she wasn't sure which floor she should go to. [I had told her that the book she was looking for would be found upstairs.]...
We have two floors. The buttons in the elevator are (1) and (2). !
I just started working answering the phones at our reference center. The strangest question I've had so far is, "What's better than gambling?" I thought perhaps he was working on a crossword? But, unfortunately, no, he was not.
Tracey wrote: "I just started working answering the phones at our reference center. The strangest question I've had so far is, "What's better than gambling?" I thought perhaps he was working on a crossword? But, ..."Sex and chocolate? Not sure. I've never felt the pull to gamble! That sounds like a case where a referral to a different kind of help desk might be in order!
One of my coworkers had an adult woman ask her if we had any books with real pictures of dinosaurs. And when that elicited a moment of silence and 'how do I answer that' face, it slowly dawned on her that that technology did not exist in the time of the dinosaurs.
Today someone asked where our books on BPA (Bisphenol-A) would be. The answer: there are no books entirely on that chemical in any library in the state. However, we did find a few books on food safety, chemicals, and plastic that had chapters on BPA. One of those times when I just want to direct people to the internet.
Sometimes the internet is the best answer.
Love this thread! When I worked on the reference desk of the Santa Rosa, California, public library in the 1970s, we really prided ourselves on helping people find what they needed. I let that standard down one Saturday when the other librarian was on her lunch hour, I had 4 people on hold on the phone, and there were several people waiting right there at the desk. A young man asked me in a macabre tone, "Do you have any books on cyanide?" I pointed at the 500s and told him they would be over there.
Zana wrote: "Love this thread! When I worked on the reference desk of the Santa Rosa, California, public library in the 1970s, we really prided ourselves on helping people find what they needed. I let that stan..."Well, we all have our days!
I haven't had any really fun questions for quite a while :(
