Comments on: Reference Question of the Week – 8/12/12

By: Jessica

Jessica — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 13:00:45 +0000

I’ve taped this message that I got in a fortune cookie to my computer monitor: “Do not seek so much to find the answer as much as to understand the question better.”

By: Brian Herzog

Brian Herzog — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 12:28:25 +0000

@ChiLibrarian: ha – take what you can get! I’ve done that too – at least, more than once someone has asked for something that I misinterpreted, and while leading them to that section of the Dewey stacks, they elaborated and I was able to change course to a different section without them realizing it.

The example I remember from library school (which works better when you say it than type it) was whales/Wales – big difference, which could be embarrassing.

@Henry: thanks for the link – I hadn’t thought of that book. The one I remember weeding was actually Directory of Massachusetts Broadcasters, but it looks like they stopped publishing in 2008 (probably another reason why I decided to weed it in 2011).

By: Henry

Henry — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 01:43:39 +0000

The book you wanted is, perhaps, the World Radio TV Handbook

http://www.worldcat.org/title/world-radio-tv-handbook-wrth-2012-the-directory-of-global-broadcasting/oclc/760290951&referer=brief_results

By: ChiLibrarian

ChiLibrarian — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 17:21:51 +0000

I recently had a patron ask if we had books on forging. I thought maybe I’d misheard and asked, “Do you want foraging, as in looking for things, or forging, like forging checks?” He said “forging” very clearly. We were having some catalog issues, so the search was taking forever and we were chatting, and I was trying to figure out specifically what he wanted to learn about forging when he said he wanted to make swords. Oh. Duh. Forging, as in blacksmithing, not forging as in documents. I never thought I’d be happy for computer lag. He never knew I’d started down a really embarrassing path.