Interesting Library Items

      I couldn't quickly think of an interesting title for this post, so I simply inserted the word to draw your attention. The first item is about the type of reference questions that used to be asked in libraries and it is from a recent letter in The New York Times. The second was discovered on a visit to a university library and it is not so amusing.

Reference Work in Olden Times
    Back in the last century one often had to visit a library or call a reference desk to find the answer to a question. The query could be an easy one - What is Pee Wee Reece's real name? - or more mystifying like the one asked below. It illustrates that information is now easier to find and, as well, that innocence has been lost.

"You Could Look It Up"
To the Editor:
New York Times, Nov. 21, 2018
Michael Lewis’s review of “The Library Book,” by Susan Orlean (Oct. 21), transported me back to the 1960s, when I worked at the reference desk of my college library and fielded all sorts of questions via the telephone.

One caller asked, “Do you have any material on fellatio?” Innocent that I was, I figured that Fellatio was likely an Italian composer, so brightly replied, “One moment, please. I’ll check the card catalog.” I couldn’t find anything under Italy or Music or Composers. At a loss, I asked my boss, Gladys, a sprightly senior, one month away from retiring. Her answer: “If he’s famous enough, he’ll be in our big dictionary!” So out to the center of the reference room we went, where a humongous dictionary lay on a tall pedestal.

Gladys’s finger traveled down the page and then stopped, and I saw her lips moving as she read. She started shaking all over and breathlessly said, “Read it! Read it!” We laughed for a long, long time. Just one of the many things I learned at the library.

[The letter was submitted by a woman from Claremont, CA.]

Source: The photograph above is found in "The Changing World of Library Reference," By Andrew Richard Albanese & Brian Kenney, Publishers Weekly, Aug 26, 2016

Library as a Safe Space (?)

     The neatly printed note provided below was inserted in a book I took from the shelves in the library at Western University. If students are as 'snowflakey' as we are led to believe, they might have melted upon reading it. I find it more puzzling than threatening.

     The note was found in an obscure history book that would never have been popular and it was in a remote section of the stacks. It is neatly typed and the paper is nicely and evenly cropped. The 'footnote' at the bottom which is not readable from my poor photograph reads:

    ("based on an actual incident, 3 laughing London cops followed by 4 London area dead ones. some things never change".)

     It is likely the case that the student (if a student did it)  who wrote it is not an English major and that the 'London' referred to is the one in which Western University is located.  What is not so clear is what is being referred to as  the  'actual incident'. There have been some very minor dustups over partying on Broughdale Ave., but that certainly hasn't resulted in "4 London area dead ones [cops].

   I suppose there are at least 30 other rules. I don't know if any similar notes have been found.
Perhaps I should call the Reference Desk.