Full Moon: Reference Madness Continues

Tony McSeán, Director of Library Relations, Elsevier, Oxford, UK

There has been a continuing flow of corroboration for the theory that when psychotherapists find a case that’s too weird for comfort they get the person off the couch and off down the road by suggesting the sharing of troubles with staff on the library reference desk. In a world where the Faversham Boat Yard in Kent (England) is run by a Mr. Sinker we should probably not be surprised by anything much, but nevertheless spirits in the Full Moon editorial dungeon have been happily sustained by yet more responses to our requests for memorable reference questions.

Pride of place, yet again, goes to Fiona McLean who enlivened the last column and who seems to be living her life inside a lost episode of Monty Python. She was once asked by a library user, “How can you tell if a hedgehog has foot and mouth disease?” Patricia Rey, who also seems to attract this sort of thing, reports that someone once brought a torn-off branch to the reference desk asking for the species to be identified so they could buy one for their garden. Continuing the nature theme, Randi Ashton Pritting from the US recounts having taken a memorable telephone reference call some years ago when the reference interview went something like:

Caller: “What’s the difference between a milk snake and a rattle snake?"

Librarian: “Would you please hold while I go and get one of our snake books?” Caller: “Please hurry. One or the other is looking at me.”

Those of us with research library experience know our users are far from immune to delusional beliefs — “everything’s free on the Internet” and “my theory is absolutely true and only professional jealousy prevents my getting published” to give but two examples. Alan Fricker, who works in an east London hospital worryingly close to where your author grew up, came up against something much more tabloidish when he was asked for a literature search on the conspiracy theory belief that “they” implant controlling microchips in people’s bodies. Not much in the published archive, but the 32,500 pages retrieved by Google are testimony to its wide provenance. Fortunately, only around 5,150 of these people think the implanting is done by aliens and of these only 3,250 are pleased because of their superior surgical procedures.

Martha VanPelt from Washington State tells of a father, helping his child with a homework assignment on dinosaurs, who became dissatisfied with artists’ impressions of said dinosaurs and demanded that, as duty librarian, she do her job properly and come up with some decent photos.

A last couple of examples before we move on to another theme next issue: Susanne Glynn from Australia reports having to cope with a sad student who came up to the reference desk and asked if they had the answer. When pressed for a touch more specificity the student was at a loss, and was only able to keep repeating that his lecturer had assured him the library would give him the answer. Eventually he wandered off none the wiser, leaving Susanne with an understandable mixture of bafflement and slight unease. Finally, Don Keast (also from Australia) tells of an elegant variation on the “All I remember about the book is its color” theme. His library was turned upside down trying to locate the green book which the reader remembered so well and needed so urgently. Eventually it turned up in a nice green binding, at which point the metaphorical light bulb flashed over the reader’s head and they owned up to suffering from complete red/green color blindness.