Best question so far this week...

A little old man puttering around with a walker approached the desk.

"What can I do for you?" my colleague asked.

"I have a question. I can't remember - what do you call those little Irish midgets?" he asked in a creaky voice.

My colleague blinked, then blinked again. "Do you mean a leprechaun?"

'Yes! That's it!" And the little old man puttered off.

And one day, this person will be authorized to inject drugs into people who are unconscious and unable to defend themselves.

An actual exchange, passed along from a nursing school librarian:

Senior Nursing Student: Um, if I want an article and we don't have the journal here, can you get it for me?

Nursing School Librarian: Sure. I can either do an ILL or submit in via our Docline account. I just need to know what article it is what journal it is in.

SNS: OK, cool. I have it up on my computer now.

(Walk to computer)

Librarian: Is that it?

SNS: Yeah.

Librarian: That's a pdf of the full article.

SNS: Yeah, can we get it from another library?

Librarian: That's the full text right there on your computer.

SNS: Um, so do you think we can get it?

Librarian: You have it already.

SNS: What?

Librarian: The pdf is an exact copy of what is found in the journal; it includes images, graphs, everything. We don't need to get it from another library because you have it here.

SNS: blink...blink....

Librarian: Just print it out and imagine it's a photocopy of what's in the journal. Does that make sense?

SNS: So, we can't get it from another library?

And it's time for a reference count!

Ask anyone who has ever worked at a library what a reference count is, and he or she will probably groan a little and say, "It's where the reference desk tries to get an accurate count of the kinds of questions we get, and then someone else [read: someone of authority] inflates the numbers or otherwise misconstrues the data until it is completely useless."

With that positive outlook, we've decided we're more interested in what the wackiest question during the course of reference count week.

Currently in the running is this conversation:

Phone Patron: What day is it?
Library Worker: Wednesday.
Phone Patron: Really?
Library Worker: Really.
Phone Patron: Oh. My brain has been in a time warp.

And then Phone Patron began to sing "Let's Do the Time Warp" before hanging up.

Bonus points: The patron did not know what day it was, but did have the wherewithal to call the library.

Introducing Ayn Rand, the novelist!

One of our student workers is a lovely, intelligent artistic type who has a knack for attracting the strangest male patrons. One male patron in particular - let's call him Don Juan - has made numerous attempts to win her heart by demonstrating that he is intelligent, well read, and suave. Take, for example, a recent attempt to win the fair student worker's heart:

Don: Do you read Ayn Rand?
SW: I've read several books by Rand. Are you thinking about any particular one?
Don: I've read everything he's ever written. (Yes, Don said "he.")
SW: She.
Don: She, who?
SW: Ayn Rand is a she.
Don: Really?
SW: She is. Do you have a favorite?
Don: Well, I'm wanting to reread some of her books.
SW: We have several of her novels. Are you looking for any particular one?
Don: Wait, she wrote fiction?!

And the conversation went downhill from there.

Plain old bookcarts are sad and lame compared to some of these sweet book rides.

If you were a book, wouldn't you be pretty excited about zipping around the library in one of these pimped-out rides? Probably, the fact that I have been checking this site every day for the past week to see the Pimp My Bookcart entries tells you everything you need to know about me.

I would love to know how many staff members/volunteers/court-mandated community service workers it took to assemble this wonderful sheepdog.

If you could use ESP, you probably wouldn't need a cable.

A not-so-tech-savvy patron approached the reference desk with a question: could we help him load a ring tone onto his cell phone?

The reps at Sprint had directed him to a particular web site. I walked him through how to select the ring tone and left him on his own when we reached the screen where he needed to enter his phone number.

A few minutes later, he approached a desk a second time. Despite entering in his phone number, the new ring tone was not imported. My colleague looked at him and said, "Did you bring a USB cable with you?"

I did a mental headslap. You idiot, I said to myself. Why didn't you catch that?

"A cable?" he repeated.

"You need to connect your phone to the computer with a cable," she said. "Bring one in and we can help you load your ring tone, okay?"

"Of course," he said. "I'll bring an ESP cable with me tomorrow."

"Did I hear him right?" I asked my colleague.

"ESP cable? Oh, yes, that's what he said." Her shoulders were shaking with silent laughter.

"I wonder if he'll be able to find one?" I said.

Maurice the Glue Bottle

If you follow me on twitter, then you know our library has been having issues with an evil patron computer management system. As us worker bees have been asking around to see what other computer management systems are out there, we heard this fascinating story about an especially compassionate system that would let anyone and anything use a computer.

Me: How does it work?
Librarian: In theory, the patron scans his or her card, and is assigned to a computer.
Me: In theory?
Librarian: Well, what we figured out is that it isn't just looking for library cards, its looking for barcodes.
Me: Any barcodes?
Librarian: Watch this.

The librarian pulled out a tissue box, flipped it over, and scanned the barcode. The system assigned "Esther Smith"* a computer.

Librarian: See? Not only did the tissue box get a computer, but it got a name, pulled right out of the patron database.
Me: Does it work with any barcode?
Librarian: Yup. And once a name as been assigned to a barcode, the system remembers it. This roll of tape is Martha Gomez* and this glue bottle? His name is Maurice*.

*Names changed to protect the privacy of inanimate objects/patrons.