WebJunction

I have received some doozies.. thought this would be a fun thread. Here is one to get us going:

Q: What is the tariff to import several gross of heated, glow-in-the-dark toilet seat covers from Korea.

A: Although the patron was specific in their item, I was luckily able to group this item under "novelties" and find the appropriate tariff... I still wonder what type of market their is for this item and if the guy ever sold of all his seat covers!

I will add others if no one else cares to share...

This is one of the weirdest reference interactions I ever had....

People often wanted to identify a bird or an insect that they had seen. It was fun to help them do that. BUT, one day a woman came in and said she wanted to identify a snake that she had seen (she wanted to know if it was poisonous). We looked through a bunch of reptile guides and had it narrowed down to a couple of possibilities. I was asking a lot of questions -- trying to narrow it down to the correct snake and the woman said, "I actually have the snake out in the back of the truck. My husband killed it. I could bring it in??" I almost fainted. I don't like snakes, even dead ones!!!

--Brenda

The most odd & hard to answer questions I get around here tend to be when a patron walks in and uncovers an old painting or etching and wants me to find a value for it. Now this is fun for the first 1/2 hour, but after spending two hours on the Internet and in the paper resources attempting to figure out what the part of the artist's name I Can read might mean...it gets a little frustrating... ;)

I want to hear what happened to Brenda in Guatemala.

That is a fun one!

I feel like such a dud because I can't think of any weird reference questions. It has been a long time since I was actually working on a reference desk; I love reference, though, and miss it terribly!

My favorite, or shall I say most memorable, reference question was about who actually said "The business of America is business." Coolidge is often attributed the quote, but it was actually William Allen! I remember this because I had just published a Masters thesis with the mis-attributed quotation at the head of one of my chapters!!!

Our library is very small, there are only 4 of us employed here so we each handle reference questions when we get them. One of the hardest to answer came in to one of the younger employees. The question was "How strong is a lion?" and it was asked by an elementary student.

How do explain to an 8 year old how strong a lion is?

I thought our aide did pretty well. She answered that a lion was so strong that it could jump a 10 ft. fence with a dead cow in it's jaws.


Message was edited by: jgaskill

Yuck!

Thanks for sharing everyone! One of the things that I love best about being a reference librarian in a public library is the wide range of interesting and challenging questions.

Another weird one that stands out in my mind is the patron that wanted articles on how to build a concrete submarine.

Re:
"I need a PHOTOGRAPH of Jesus Christ." Very insistent on it being a photograph.

I have had that one too... only it was a photograph of Paul Revere...

Re:
"Do you have any, like, resources, that could, like, help me?"

I am laughing out loud at that one.I get it alll the time.... especially when I am doing virtual reference.

I once had a woman come into our library with a picture of the portrait of George Washington praying at Valley Forge. She wanted a transcript of the prayer he was saying.

One of the most interesting we've gotten was from a mother whose young daughter asked her, "Where do butterflies go when it rains?" We took that question with us to several reference workshops until we finally got an answer - they hide under leaves.

I love it. This is making me wish I was working at the reference desk. Never a dull moment!

Keep 'em coming.

Not Cliff's, but:
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/jurassicpark/

Quoted from Wikipedia: "Microfiche is one of the most compact analog storage media in common use. It is normally used to provide a comprehensive research library in institutions (such as small college libraries) that could not otherwise afford the floor space. It was invented in 1961 by Carl O. Carlson an employee of the National Cash Register Co. The patent was issued in 1965."

If microfish and microfiche are pronounced the same, how do you know the patron wasn't referring to microfiche?

Of course, this term is used in comparison to microfilm.

> This was one I had trouble keeping a straight face
> with - "Do you have any old newspapers on
> microwave?". Have had this a few times in my career.
> Also, I've had: "newspapers on microfish"

lol! I love it. I would have loved to hear your (polite, I'm sure) explanation to the patron as to why that was not possible.

The worst part is ... that guy can vote. :-)

Here are a few I've collected over the years: "How many ribs did Adam have?" "Was the Shroud of Turin the tablecloth used at the Last Supper?" "What religion was Socrates, Jewish or Christian?" "What does it mean when you dream of raw, bloody beef?" "What's the word for when you go into the jungle and shoot an animal and then you feel really good about it?" "Do you have a synagogue I can check out?" (Yes, but it's out right now. Would you settle for a Masonic Temple?) "Is Halloween the Devil's birthday?" "I need a book on evil twins." "I need a copy of Macbeth, in English." "I need a Biblical remedy for boils." "Who wrote The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin?" "What does the Bible say about lettuce?" "Does the library loan out empathy bellies?" "Who was the first female singer?" "How do you say 'serendipity' in Sanskrit?" "Do you need a car to get to the library?" (Yes. If you try to walk here we shoot you.) "I need poems about Raquel Welch." "Do you have 8-10 inch chalice I can check out for our church?" "I need the sheet music for the Lord's Prayer for xylophone." "Where are the audio cassettes for foreigners?" "Were Mona Lisa and Anastasia the same person?" "Is Bob Hope one word or two?" "How do you say 'Tonya' in Hawaiian?" "I need the phone number for the person in charge of comedy in Hollywood." "I need books on Judo-Christian art." (You mean like a painting of St. Francis cracking bricks with his head?) "I need pictures of Michelangelo's Sixteenth Chapel." "What is the African word for goulash?" "What century were the 1950s in?" "What is Tweety-Pie's gender?" "Does the library have any books on any prominent people?" "I need the Pledge of Allegiance in Russian." "I need to contact Barbra Streisand because I've been decapitated and I think she may want to do a movie about it." "Do you have the sheet music for '99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall'?" "I need the Chinese characters for 'September 11' because I want to have them tattooed on my butt." Patron: "What's the definition of the word 'kah-teer'?" Librarian: "How do you spell it?" Patron: "Like in 'mouseketeer'." "I'd like the music for Taco Bell's Canon in D." "Can cross-eyed people be hypnotized?"

Welcome, mrthingy! Thanks for restarting this discussion. It's full of gems. I have spent enough time on the desk to appreciate these, but not enough time to have any real treasures of my own.

This one busted me up:
<blockquote> "What's the definition of the word 'kah-teer'?" Librarian: "How do you spell it?" Patron: "Like in 'mouseketeer'." </blockquote>

If you get a chance, swing by the Getting Started forum and [url http://www.webjunction.org/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=690&tstart=0]Introduce Yourself to WebJunction[/url] -- there's folks here itching to give you an official WJ welcome!

Message edited by: timking

In the decades where I worked reference (how that for an extended way of saying "Old Fart"?) I found that people who had fairly reliable b.s. detectors thought their questions to be "really weird" because they didn't know how to get the answers themselves.

It was the "tin foil hat" crowd that caused, ah, difficulties. <b>Of course</b> their questions were normal ...

One of the odder questions I heard at the reference desk was:
"What is the capital of Baltimore?" He settled for the capital of Maryland.

St Elmo Acosta was the name of one of our former mayors. He opened the first bridge over the St Johns in Jacksonville and it was eventually named for him. A well dressed young woman came to the reference desk and asked me what he was the patron saint of. I was tempted to say: "Bridges over the St Johns" but gave her the real answer. She seemed not to believe me.