[LM_NET] HIT: Your BEST reference question ever

[Toni Buzzeo <tonibuzzeo@TONIBUZZEO.COM>]

ORIGINAL REQUEST: I'm working on a new manuscript and find myself 
wondering what is the BEST (funniest, strangest, coolest) reference 
question you've ever had from a kid.  I'd like something related to 
an animal, if possible, and very obscure.

To start the ball rolling, mine was from a transitional first grader 
whose teacher (laughing hysterically, I might add) sent the child 
down to ask, "Mrs. Buzzeo, I'm researching sloths and I found out 
that they only poop once a week.  But I can't find out whether they 
come down out of their trees to poop.  Mrs. Brady said that YOU could 
probably find the answer."  (Actually, we ended up INFERRING that the 
answer was yes.  Those crazy reference sources didn't address this 
and it was pre-Internet days :>)

RESPONSES:
I had so many of these.  I wish I could remember them!  One I do 
remember was "When was the bell invented?"  In pre-Internet days we 
had to do some digging.  If I remember correctly there isn't a 
definite who and when.  Another one "How fast does my dog walk up 
hill?" Students were researching various animals.  We found a chart 
that had the speed of various animals and worked from there, but the 
child was not happy with that answer. I know one time we had to call 
up my Vet to answer a students question.  My students always wanted 
the reference source to state the answer in the form of Breed X dog 
walks up hill at __ miles per hour.  No inferring or digging.

I miss those days!

***

When I worked for the public library, we set up a "Stump the 
Librarian" at the Mall for National Library Week.  We were each 
allowed to take one book (I took an Almanac) and the public could ask 
any question of us that they could imagine.  We were stumped only once:

"How many presidents were left-handed?"

Sorry that it's not an animal question, but your email brought back a 
fun memory!

***


"do you have a book to show me how to make wooden Barbie dolls?"

***

My favorite was from my own daughter, when she was about five. It is 
not that funny but was just something that probably does not occur to 
an adult..."Do butterflies hear?" We called the Houston Public 
Library Information Line (this was before Internet), and she got 
serious attention. They did some research and gave her an answer she 
could understand..."yes, but just a little bit."

***

Mine was the student who came skidding into the library saying in a 
desperate tone, " I need information about that planet - you know the 
one - the planet,  uhh...uhh.. GOOFY - that's it!  The planet Goofy." 
Naturally, I took the poor Disneyfied student to the books about Pluto.
Perhaps that is why poor old Pluto doesn't get any respect and has 
been recently downgraded and is no longer considered a planet.

***

Mine came from a 6th grade student... Which animal has the most 
skin?  As in largest area of skin space? We never really found that 
one.  Sadly, her librarian, me, had to admit I wasn't sure where to 
even begin with that one.  LOL  We tried a few things regarding 
overall size and we made some inferences, but she kepts pondering the 
effects of "baggy skinned" animals.  LOL

***

One day, a 3rd grade teacher sent one of her students, Brianna, to 
the library to look on the Internet to get information and a picture 
of a cheetah for a report.  The Internet was not working in her 
classroom so she was checking to see if it was working in the 
library.  It wasn't, and the disappointed student started to go back 
to her classroom, but I told her we could look in the 
encyclopedia.  She didn't know what an encyclopedia was, so I showed 
her the three different sets of encyclopedias we had at the time and 
helped her find "cheetah" in it.  Brianna's eyes widened in surprise 
as she exclaimed, "Wow! It's the Internet all printed out into books!"

Though this cute anecdote may not make it in your book, I thought it 
was an interesting way to illustrate how the advent of the Internet 
drastically changed the way we conduct research.  For over a century, 
encyclopedias were the mainstay of research, but many times they now 
tend to be a last resort (and I continue to gently challenge that 
attitude whenever I encounter it).

This happened six years ago when I was a library aide at Glenellen 
Elementary School in Clarksville, TN.  At the time, I was 43 years 
old and working toward my undergraduate degree in education at Austin 
Peay State University in Clarksville so that I could then go to 
library school to earn my M.L.I.S., which I (finally!) received in 
2007 from Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, TN.  I just 
finished my first year as the school media specialist at Richview 
Middle in Clarksville.  I have truly found my calling!

***

When I was in Library School at University of Buffalo in 2001, our 
reference professor, Dr. Judith Robinson, asked us to find the answer 
to this question:

Why are ducks' feet yellow (or orange)? In other words, why THAT color?
Did the color serve a purpose...?

She had been looking for the answer for years and had not found it 
yet.  Needless to say, we could not either.  I don't know if anyone 
at UB has found the answer yet.

***

Someone once asked for an address to a nauga ranch out west. Remember 
car seats made of Naugahyde (plastic)? They said a nauga was a cross 
between a cow and an armadillo!

***

This isn't a school example, but it's my best reference question 
story from the public library. I was working the phone at the 
reference desk and a call came in about the time the first state 
quarter came out. This state quarter was for Delaware and featured a 
colonial man riding a horse with the caption Ceasar Rodney. The 
caller wanted to know if that was the name of the horse.
(It isn't, Rodney was a Revolutionary War hero, little known today 
outside of Delaware.) I had to do a little checking so I took the 
name and number to call back. The caller hestitated, then said "My 
name is Ed, but I'm calling from Wilbur's house." Horse, Ed who was 
at Wilbur's House. As a chorus of "A horse is a horse..." filled my 
head, I figured I'd been pranked. I finished the call, hung up and 
almost threw my note about the phone number away, when I thought I'd 
better double check. The reserve of the phone number did indeed show 
it was listed to a Wilbur. So I looked up the answer, called Ed back 
and he was very glad to know. I think he missed the irony and 
connection of the names.

***

I had a student once ask me for a PHOTOGRAPH of Genghis Kahn.

***

I used to struggle every year with students who insisted on 
researching ligers -- the offspring of a male lion and female tiger.

It is much easier to find a bit of info on them now, but since they 
only exist in captivity, they still don't make a good research topic 
if information on existence in the wild is required.

***

Well, my first day (in the first 10 minutes no less) at my current 
school district, I had a first grade boy with bright and eager eyes 
come into the library and ask me "Do you have any books about 
krakken?"  I couldn't understand what he was saying, so I asked him 
to repeat himself.  His eyes clouded a bit and he repeated 
himself.  I still couldn't understand him so I asked him how to spell 
it (duh!) and his eyes almost rolled and said You're the teacher, you 
tell me, but he was too polite to say anything.  I had obviously, in 
his humble opinion, fallen from the top of the teacher pedestal to 
the bottom of the heap because I knew NOTHING!  It was so funny I 
wanted to laugh - but his desire to find his answer was so great I 
had to carry on without even a hint of a smile.

Finally after a few more questions from his teacher who was standing 
right there (ready to laugh out loud as well), his teacher asked him 
where did you hear this word. Our little guy said he had watched the 
Pirates of the Caribbean and he wanted a book about krakken, you 
know, the giant squid!!

After a quick bit of internet research I found out how to spell 
"cracken" and learned that they are a giant mythological squid of the 
ocean.  I had no books in our library with anything on the topic, but 
I was able to find a brief bit about this mythological creature in an 
older book in our public library system.  Next budget cycle, I 
definitely plan to find a newer better resource for this curious 
little guy and others like him who can't wait to read about cracken!

***

My question was from first grade as well.  What is the poison in 
"poison wasp's" poison?

I still haven't found an answer.



Toni Buzzeo, MA, MLIS <mailto:tonibuzzeo@tonibuzzeo.com>
Maine Library Media Specialist of the Year Emerita
Buxton, ME 04093
http://www.tonibuzzeo.com
R is for Research, illustrated by Nicole Wong (Upstart 2008) BRAND NEW!  

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