August 30th, 2008 Brian Herzog
Here’s an example of what should be a simple question needing a round-about path to find the answer.
A patron came in asking for help finding movie listings. He’d heard there was a special showing at the local Showcase Cinema, called “attack of the” something, and he wanted to go. It’s part of a series the theater is doing, showing certain movies on Thursday nights for $5.
But when he was at the movie theater, the employees wouldn’t tell him what was showing on Thursdays. They said they didn’t know. So he came to the library.
Usually for quick movie listings I check Yahoo Movies, but that didn’t mention this special Thursday series. Also, all the phone numbers I could find for the theater were just their recorded show times, which likewise did not mention the special Thursday movies.
So the next step was to search the internet for “showcase lowell thursday attack.” The first listing was the flickr photo shown above, which the patron was excited to see.
The second listing was “Attack of the B Movies” Series Playing at Select National…, an article about this series. It mentioned the information came from the National Amusements website, and after clicking around their site for a bit, we found their Special Program listing, which linked to the upcoming schedule of movies.
You can also check their locations listings to find a theater near you.
It took less than ten minutes to follow this chain of links to the answer, but it shouldn’t have even taken that long. It’s disappointing that the cinema employees (and the theater’s phone recording) didn’t answer this question right away, but I am glad the patron thought to come to the library. I hadn’t heard of this movie series, and not only am I a fan of B movies, but I’ve also been asked about these twice since this first reference question.
Too bad this isn’t a drive-in.
Tags: b, b movies, libraries, Library, listings, movies, national amusements, public, Reference Question, showcase, showcase cinema See Also
Posted under Library, Reference Question | 5 Comments »
August 21st, 2008 Brian Herzog
So apparently, in 34 years, I’ve never looked up in the phone book a business name starting with the word “The.”
While looking up a phone number of someone whose name started with “Terr,” I happened to glance at the rest of the page. I was surprised to notice that there were business listings filed under “the” - The Pizza Place, The Family Eye Care Center, etc.
Since listings like this in a library catalog would be an error, it caught my eye. It seems like it should be wrong for a phone book, too, but I could understand there are business where “The” is an official part of their name.
But I was amazed I’d never noticed this before. Just to make sure I wasn’t crazy, I looked up some of these businesses where I would have thought they’d be - under “P” for Pizza, “F” for Family, etc. Some were listed, and some weren’t. How strange.
So I checked the other phone books we have, to see if all the publishers did it that way. I found that some businesses are listed under “The,” some aren’t, and some are under both. And then I found something even stranger.
On the “T” page of one of the books, there were listings for “Test Test.” This is something I commonly do when entering junk information to test a new system, and I was thoroughly entertained to see it published in a phone book.
All of the various “Test” entries were listed at the same address, but with different phone numbers. Curiosity got the better of me, and I tried a few of the numbers - but they all just went right to a generic voicemail. These “Test” entries were listed in the other phone books, too, so I’m guessing it tracks back to whoever complied the data originally and sold their database to the publishers. Ha.
But again, this underscores the important of knowing the appropriateness and limitations of your resources.
And so, now the world knows that I can entertain myself for a good twenty minutes reading the telephone book.
Tags: book, Books, listing, listings, page, pages, phone, test, testing, the, yellow See Also
Posted under Random | 1 Comment »
