This was the entirety of a call that came in Wednesday afternoon this week:
[ring ring] Me: Reference desk, can I help you? Patron: Yeah can can...can you tell me what...what's on green tonight Green Lantern...Lantern...I mean Green...you know...the other one...Green Lantern...Green...Arrow...Arrow Green...Green Arrow yeah Green Arrow no... Lantern Green...Green...um...it's not Green Lantern, it's not Green Arrow...um...HORNET Green Hornet can you tell me what's on Green Hornet tonight oh wait it's Wednesday nevermind [click]
We have a patron who frequently calls to find out which episodes of his shows are going to be on that day. He usually ends up watching them all anyway, regardless of the episode, but he just wants to know in advance.
In this case, I think he had just woken up from a nap, and only eventually realized his show wasn't on that night.
In general, my favorite "what's on TV" resource is Zap2It.com, because it usually provides better descriptions of "local programming" than TVGuide.com. Although for some of this patron's shows, we have to go right to the MeTV Channel's website for schedule and descriptions.
This patron calls with this question so much that I've bookmarked both of these websites at all the reference computers. It kind of makes me laugh that we have ready reference resources devoted to just one patron, but it certainly is worth it.
Here's a topic that I've heard come up multiple times recently in different contexts, and I'm curious if there is any kind of wider consensus on it. The question is, what does the word "video" mean to people?
We're redesigning our catalog, and in the process of coming up with format description, we had a discussion (and disagreement) on whether "video" means just VHS tapes, or if it refers to to DVDs and other formats as well (like "music" is a generic term for anything on CD, tape, etc). We're also redesigning our website, and in that context, we weren't sure if the word "video" means physical tapes/discs, or if people would presume it means online clips/episodes/tutorials/etc - or both.
So I thought I'd take a quick poll - please make a selection, but also leave a comment below on why, or if I've missed an option entirely.
A patron came up to the desk with "SONY" written on a piece of paper. He said,
This is the kind of TV I have; can I plug headphones into it? I looked at the television but there are so many little plug holes that I don't know what they're all for.
I explained that Sony makes lots of different models, some with and some without headphone jacks. We really needed the actual model number of his television to answer this, so he said he'd go home and look for that and call me when he found it.
20 minutes later he calls, and I do an image search for sony kdl32l5000 to look at the pictures. My logic was that a headphone jack would probably be right on the front of the television if anywhere, so it should be easy to spot. If that didn't work, then I'd look for specs or a manual.
I found lotsofpictures of the front, back, and sides of the television, but didn't see a headphone jack anywhere. None of the reviews mentioned headphones either. To double-check, I visited the Sony's product webpage for this television. I did Ctrl+F to search for headphone on the page, but there was no mention - and disappointing product images, too.
All the while, the patron had been describing the jacks he could find - none of which had a picture of little headphones next to it.
For a quick last attempt, I did another search for kdl32l5000 headphones and found the manual, and also the chat log of someone offering support for this exact question. I found the chat log hilarious, but between that and everything else I'd found, the conclusion was that there is no headphone jack on this television.
The patron was fine with that when I told him. However, in the meantime he had inadvertently pulled all the other wires out of the television while sliding it around, so the headphones were now the least of his worries.
Jerry Springer
Episode: I'm Leaving My Wife for a Tranny (NEW)
A man wants to leave his wife for a transsexual; a woman reveals a secret; a man worries his one-night stand could end his marriage.
When I finished, the patron said, "whew, nothing that I'm interested in" and went back to his computer.
But wait, there's more!
About 11:45 the phone rang, and it was this patron - I didn't see him leave, but apparently he went home to watch the show anyway. He was calling to ask what Jerry Springer's phone number was to get tickets, because they said it too fast on the show and he couldn't write it down.
Now that the new television season has started, I've been watchingCommunity again - a show about a group of adult students at a community college.
The way they worked Twitter into the new season was brilliant, and while I was checking out @oldwhitemansays and the other characters' accounts, I stumbled across the website created for the campus library - complete with rotating banner:
Please remember that the library is a communal place for all GCC students, faculty and staff. Please discard all trash when leaving a study area. And, due to frequent misuse, all window blinds must be left open or raised. Prepare accordingly.
While conversing with your fellow colleagues is natural, we ask you to please keep the noise level to a minimum in respect to others that are studying silently.
Food and drinks, with the exception of closed water bottles, are strictly forbidden in the library. However, they are allowed, within reason, within the study room walls only. Librarians will be walking around and monitoring the floors during working hours. If you are asked to discard of food or drink, please do so quickly and regretfully, as it is for the protection of our books and materials. No exceptions will be granted.
It's impressive they put the extra effort into creating this, but it also makes the show more fun. And yay for a relatively positive portrayal of a library in prime time.
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.
This was the entirety of a call that came in Wednesday afternoon this week:
