[Publib] Best reference question ever

[Wolter, Virginia]

My best of that ilk was shortly after we received an interesting book for our collection.  A young man came up to my side of the desk and mumbled his request.  My boss, who was sitting on the other side of the desk, started to ask him to repeated in a louder voice. But I stopped her and told the young man I knew exactly where to find it.  The book was The Guide to Getting It On by Paul Joannides.  
 
Ginny Wolter
Toledo-Lucas County Public Library 

________________________________

From: Helen R [mailto:librarylass1959 at gmail.com]
Sent: Mon 12/1/2008 10:16 AM
To: Theyer, Hillary
Cc: publib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Publib] Best reference question ever


I don't know if these qualified as best ever but they were funny.  In a former life I worked as a librarian aide at a community college.  My favorite question was from a young man who was at the college on a sports scholarship.  He came to the library in search of some information - I knew he was in speech class as he had the textbook.  He suffered from a combination of things - he used a lot of slang, had a speech impediment and mumbled horribly when he talked.  So he "asked" me a question....all I got out of it was "mouse."  After he tried to clarify it for me several times we were no closer.  He then drew a picture of mouse ears...I said Mickey Mouse and he nodded yes!  Then he went on to draw a house which confused me but then his face brighten, he got the atlas off the stand and found Florida.  Turns out he wanted to do a report on Disney World.  We found some material (this was before the internet) and he went out happy.
 
The other one was I was listening to a student from Nicaragua practice a demostration speech she had to give (I was sounding board, proofer, tutor, etc to many students) and she kept talking about sewing naked.  After the third time refering to this activity I stopped and asked if naked sewing was what she meant and I described naked sewing.  She blushed horribly and then tried to explain what she meant - turned out to be a "hidden stitch."
 
Helen Rigdon
Branch Manager - Argentine Library
Kansas City Kansas Public Library




	 


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