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


Reference Question of the Week – 8/31/14

   September 6th, 2014 Brian Herzog

skpeticalinquirercoverEarlier this week, a coworker at our circulation desk sent me this message:

A patron came to the desk last night and asked where the last 6 months of Skeptical Inquirer were. He said they're never there except the new one. Did we have a blip in circulation?

It turns out that this is a bi-monthly magazine, and the issue the patron wanted was checked out. All of our copies were accounted for, but since there are fewer issues than a monthly magazine, it just seemed like more were missing than actually were.

But: this patron had doubts and that led him to ask a question - do you know what makes him? A Skeptical Inquirer!

It's things like this that make being a librarian worthwhile.



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