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 The criteria for inclusion on this page aren't clear, even to the editor who is selecting these tidbits from the thousands of emails we get. Sometimes this stuff is funny, sometimes touching, often nothing more (nor less) than a tale retold. Hope you enjoy the things. TATTOOS I was teaching a library instruction session to a freshman writing class, punctuating my words with many active hand movements. Getting warmed up to my topic, I had pulled up my sleeves and increased to expansive gestures. At the end of class, I asked for questions. After a couple of queries that were pertinent to searching the library catalog, a young man in the second row raised his hand and asked, "Is there a story behind those tattoos?" I answered simply enough, "No story really." But, if they learned nothing else from that session, the class now thinks that librarians are COOL.
My students, at least, think I am cool. I overheard one young man saying to his buddy as he was walking away with the reference book in hand, "Mrs. Carlson is so cool. She knows what is in every one of these books." I'll keep reality a secret for now.
A man walks up to a Reference Desk. He lays his thoroughly tattooed arms on the Desk. He says to the librarian, "I woke up with this one, and I need to know what it means," as he points to a Chinese-looking symbol tattooed on his inner arm near the elbow. The librarian asks if he has any idea what language or what type of symbol it may be. "Not really," he says, "Maybe Chinese?" The librarian tracks down a book of Chinese language symbols. The man and his companion pour over the book and return about a half hour later, all smiles. "Did you find what you needed?" asks the librarian? "Yeah, we're all set. Thanks," says the guy. That librarian was me.
The "Reference is Cool" button is the hottest thing for RefSters since the IRS buttons that warned patrons not to ask the librarians for tax advice.
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." Groucho Marx
While showing a patron how to use our online genealogy database to research her great-great-grandfather, we discovered that he was MY great-great-grandfather. Ever seen a reference librarian and patron hugging each other, saying, "Cousin!" and jumping up and down? That was us.
Reference is cool because it makes it possible to be that person at the party who can answer the questions that get posed to no one in particular such as, "Dude, I wonder who invented Goldschlager and how much would all the little gold flakes from these eleven bottles be worth if I sold them."
My coolest, or perhaps most surreal, moment at the reference desk came this past spring when a young man approached me at the desk and asked where he could sell the flute he was holding. The fact that this particular flute was missing its head joint was a clue to me that this was my husband's flute which, two weeks previous, had been stolen from our house by some non-musical thief who left behind the head joint. Our security guard recovered the flute - the young man took off.
At our library, the librarian on duty at the reference desk is referred to as the Designated Information Professional Now On Duty, or more commonly - the DIPNOD.
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