or, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Fear and Loathing at a Public Library Reference Desk



Reference Question of the Week – 12/27/15

   January 2nd, 2016

keepingupkardashiansIf you're a reference librarian long enough, eventually you might hear every possible question - even those you'd never think someone would ask.

Due to traveling for Christmas and how New Year's Eve fell this year, this past week was a short one for me. However, that didn't stop one patron from sneaking in this phone question on Wednesday evening:

Me: Chelmsford Library, can I help you?
Patron: Hi, my husband and I were watching a show last night which we liked, and then I found out it was a series, and we'd like to watch all the earlier episodes to get caught up, so I thought I'd get them from the library, so can you help me with this, I mean find those old shows for me, I don't know how many there are...
Me: [glance at the timer on the phone and see that 30 seconds has already elapsed on this call without the patron giving me the information I need to actually start helping her, so even though I hate interrupting people, I have to break in with] Oh sure, what's the name of the show?
Patron: "Keeping up with the Kardashians."
Me: Oh, okay.

I mean, how do you respond to that? I've never seen this show, but the things I'm thinking are,

  • Ugh.
  • I feel like this show was on a long time ago
  • Most libraries don't collect reality show DVDs

I don't like being snobby, but I really am surprised someone would go out of their way to track down old episodes of this show. Being timely and current was, I thought, part of the appeal, but I suppose if you get sucked into the personalities, it doesn't matter.

Of course I don't say any of this to the patron, and instead just quickly and quietly search our consortium catalog, but that came up empty. The next step for us is to search Massachusetts' statewide Commonwealth catalog - which, very surprisingly, has seasons 1-3.

Now that is impressive - to me. The patron, however, is a little disappointed there aren't more, although neither of us know how many seasons there were (another surprise for me: this show started in 2007 and is currently in it's 11th season).

So there you go. I requested the available DVDs to get the patron started, and asked her to check back after she got caught up. Perhaps by then there will be more in the system, or we can ILL from outside the state, or I'll be able to find episodes somewhere online, or she will have found a marathon or something on television.

I'm sure there are all kinds of crazy things I check out of the library that other people would never think someone would want, so yay for a public library coming through with what a patron was looking for.




Tags: , , , , , , ,


2 Responses to “Reference Question of the Week – 12/27/15”

  1. Susan Says:

    We have many seasons of “The Amazing Race”, which is a reality show (I think), as well as a few seasons of the Kardashian show.

  2. Brian Herzog Says:

    @Susan: We actually have Wicked tuna. Season 1, although that’s kind of local, and may have been a donation. But thank you for letting me know about your Kardashian DVDs – you might be getting an OCLC ILL request from us sometime soon.