Reference Question of the Week – 6/29/08

I really like answering reference questions using print resources. But I also get just as much satisfaction answering a question using a tool I read about on someone's blog.

In honor of the Fourth of July this year, a patron was doing off-beat research into things that have happened on July 4ths past, to develop a trivia game for his cookout.

I knew of plenty of "in this day in history" type resources, but he had already found a lot of that kind of information. Happily, I remembered reading a library's blog post mentioning a website listing #1 songs for a given day in history.

With just two clicks, we had a list of the Billboard #1 song for July 4th for the past 100+ years. The patron was very happy with this, and proceeded to our CD collection to get as many July 4th #1 songs as he could to use as music for his party. It's rare to see a patron walk away giddy, but this was one of those times.

This website will also be handy with a annual cub scout project. To earn one of their merit badges, the scouts have to find out what happened on the day they were born. Not that knowing the #1 song will make them better scouts, but it does add a fun new dimension to the project.

Also, I would like to point out that in my birth year of 1974, the #1 song was "Rock the Boat" by The Hues Corporation. That's a good song title for a holiday celebrating revolution and independence (even if that's not what the song's about).

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Reference Question of the Week – 3/25

A student came in working on a local history project. Part of the assignment was to find out what daily life was like for people who lived in Chelmsford long ago.

For projects like this, a great local history resource is a book called "The History of Chelmsford," written by Wilson Waters in 1917. Being as old as it is, it covers in great detail what Chelmsford was like in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It is also a large book, which often intimidate kids (and adults), but it has a tremendous amount of useful information. In this case, it even has a chapter called "The Life of Long Ago," which went a long way towards answering the student's question.

However, within this chapter, there is a subsection called "Social Life." As I was skimming it, I started to laugh. The full text of this book is very graciously provided online, but there were a few paragraphs on practical jokes (noted as "a common amusement") I thought worth pulling out:

A man, after spending an evening at the tavern, might, with difficulty, get into his chaise in the dark, and find his horse apparently backing when told to go forward, some wicked boys having hitched him into the thills with his head where his tail ought to be.

On a cold winter night the boys stuffed the schoolhouse chimney with hay, and poured water down upon it, which froze solid, so that it was impossible to have a fire the next morning.

The first thing a new schoolmaster had to do was to show himself master of the biggest boys, which, sometimes, required a knock-down blow, resulting in universal respect for the school-master. In such a tussle, one poor man had his long hair rubbed full of burrs.

Parson Bridge, when courting his second wife, the Widow Abbott, in taking a short cut to her house, "the Ark," had to cross a plank over the brook. One evening it broke, and let him into the water, the boys having sawed it nearly in two in the middle.

Ah, those old tyme Chelmsfordians knew how to live.

chelmsford, chelmsford ma, history, libraries, library, practical jokes, reference question, the history of chelmsford

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