I haven’t done a good, old fashioned, “look it up on the internet” type reference question in awhile, so this was kind of fun. A patron asked,
What was the name of the song they played at the end of Castle this week?
I actually like Castle*, but hadn’t seen the episode yet because I watch it online instead of on television. So, the first step was to get the name of the episode by looking up Castle on Hulu.com (“Wrapped up in Death” aired on 4/5).
Next we searched the internet for “Wrapped up in Death” castle song to see if anyone else was talking about this song. One of the results, heardontv.com, was exactly what we needed - it even described the scene when the song was played. According to that website, the song was “Love Is Endless” by Mozella.
The final step was to search for this song on YouTube just to make sure it was the right one. It was, so the patron was happy.
A video of the song is below, but I warn you: it’s catchy, and will likely get stuck in your head. I noticed the patron was humming it when he left twenty minutes later.
*And it humors me to no end that my library actually shelves Richard Castle books.
For all you Valentine’s Day sentimentalists out there, here are two questions that came in about a week apart, but from the same patron:
Did Eric and Donna from “That 70’s Show” end up getting married?
and
Does SpongeBob like Sandy?
I used to watch “That 70’s Show” but apparently stopped watching before the last couple seasons, because I had no idea what happened to the characters. Nor, now that someone reminded me of it, did I particularly care, but this patron seemed very concerned.
Apparently, many other people are too: when I searched Google for an answer, the auto-complete showed other searches for this question.
But from what Icouldfind, it seems that no, they never did get married, and the series ended with ambiguity as to what their relationship was like.
Sigh. After an initial pause on my part, he explained that he had turned his television on in the middle a movie. He didn’t have a TV Guide, so he called us to look up the online television listings.
We knew the time and channel, so this was easy to find - it turns out the movie was 100 Million BC. He said it was good, and asked if the library had it in case he had to leave and thus miss the end. When I told him it wasn’t in our catalog, he said,
Well, now I’ll have to stay to watch the ending, but I guess I’ll never get to see how it starts.
One of the local television stations in Boston, WHDH 7, just aired an investigative story into libraries:
Theaters and video stores usually require an age of 17 or older to see or rent an R-Rated release, unless there is parental permission. But something altogether different is going on in some local libraries. 7News’ Jonathan Hall investigates.
This is similar to the situation we had here a little while ago (except without the undercover investigators), which prompted us to put label ratings on VHS and DVDs when possible. And it looks like the Boston Public Library, “in line with American Library Association guidelines,” is on the same page as us.
Libraries do not raise children, we provide access to information. Parents raise children, and we do what we can to support that need - while at the same time supporting the informational and educational needs of everyone else in the community.
I found this news report interesting, but a bit sensationalized. I’m sure as long as there are parents and children (and news outlets in need of ratings), issues like this will never die.
A patron called in and asked for a listing of all the public access television stations in Massachusetts. She said she had an idea for a show, and wanted to see about getting it on the air.
In our reference collection, we have the Directory of Massachusetts Broadcasters, from the Massachusetts Broadcasters Association, but it didn’t seem to list public access stations. I called them and spoke with someone who checked with their assistant director. The word was that they do not deal with public access, and they suggested calling a local station and asking if they had a directory.
We do have a local cable station in town, Chelmsford Telemedia, but they patron said she had tried calling them but couldn’t get through. We’ve got a pretty good relationship with them since they film lots of programs at the library, but when I called everyone was out of the office, too - those are four hard working guys.
So, continuing on, I tried the Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media, which is also in our reference collection. This looked like it had what the patron wanted, but also listed a lot besides public access stations and seemed difficult to sift through.
Next I tried the FCC and Massachusetts State government websites, thinking they might provide a list, but couldn’t find a simple list. Then it was onto the general internet, using searches like “list of public access stations” and “public access television massachusetts,” and found:
All of these listed more or less the same stations. I called the patron back to let her know what I found, and she was happy to hear about the online lists. I sent her all the urls in an email, and also said that if she comes to the library we can help her look through the Gale directory.
I never heard back, so I take that as a good sign - the online lists got her off and running on her project, and she was just too busy to reply (whereas I usually hear back right away if the information is not helpful).
I still feel like there should be an official government source for this type of listing, but I still have yet to find it through any official channels.
I haven’t done a good, old fashioned, “look it up on the internet” type reference question in awhile, so this was kind of fun. A patron asked,
