CHALLENGING REFERENCE QUESTIONS
Do you have what it takes to be a public librarian? Try out these
reference questions.
Remember that you are not allowed to laugh at people, and you must
cite a source for every answer you give.
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SECTION ONE: CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
* I'm looking for that new book by Ayn Rand: The Gay Lunch Club.
* Do you have Amy Chang's new book about kitchens?
* Do you have a book called The Cameron Brothers ? I think it was
written by Dostoyevsky.
* Where can I find a copy of Robert's Book of Rules?
* Why can't I find T.S. Eliot's The Sword in the Stone?
* Do you have a study book for the Maryland Civil Rights Test?
* Do you have something called "The Maryland Anecdotal Code"?
* Do you have Where the Sidewalk Ends by E.B. White?
* Do you have that new book The Penguin Firm?
* Do you have How and When to Influence People by Carnigee?
* Do you have Ann Kim's new book From the Kitchen Window? [1
* I need a Clinton manual for car repair. [12]answer
* Do you have Ann Selleck's book Through the Years? [13]answer
* I'm looking for a book called Color Your Own Parachute and it's
not listed in your catalog computer. Why not? [14]answer
* Do you have George Wallace's book on bridges in the south?
* Do you have Britter Madness by Patty Osmond? [16]answer
* I'm looking for The Red Pony by John Seinfeld. [17]answer
* Do you have Book 3 of The Corpse by D.W. Griffith? [18]answer
* I'm looking for two sources called Done in Bradstreet and Standard
in Poor. [19]answer
* I've looked in your computer for books on "tension order deficit."
Why don't you have anything? [20]answer
* Can I have the cross-section?
* I need a restoration form for a G.E.D. class, and my counselor
said I could find it here.
* I need information on Martin Luther King's 95 Theses.
* Do you have any books about the nuclear bomb they dropped on
Chernobyl?
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SECTION TWO: LET ME THINK ABOUT THAT ONE
* Why don't you have next week's New York Times yet?
* How often does The National Business Employment Weekly come out?
How about Publisher's Weekly?
* Do you have a color picture of those black-and-white cows?
* Can you help me figure out who's the author of the Berenstain
Bears books?
* I'm looking for a stock listing from The Wall Street Journal for
April 31st. Why don't you have that issue?
* I'm looking for the address and telephone number of a company
called Becktell. Their phone number is 713-xxx-xxxx.
* I'm looking for a particular diet called The Fad Diet.
* I want to find out about the life of slaves in Philadelphia in the
1900s.
* Books on Maryland history -- now, would that include important
people and events?
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SECTION THREE: ALPHABETICAL ORDER & OTHER LIBRARY
MYSTERIES
* Can you help me find To Kill A Mockingbird? Over there on your
Classics shelf, it goes right from Thomas Hardy to Nathaniel
Hawthorne. [22]answer
* I can't find Home Office Computing magazine. In the alphabetical
magazine section, it goes right from Healthline to Home Mechanix.
* I'm looking for a microscope I can use for a few minutes. Do you
have one there?
* A duck and its babies just wandered across the road into the
Library's front lawn. Shouldn't you call someone or something?
* Do you have a Bantam book here? No, I don't know the title or
author, but I know it's a Bantam book. Can't you just look that
up?
* [Phone call] Please overdue these books for me.
* Do you keep your travel books separate on the computer?
* I'm seventeen and I want to get a library card. Is it okay if my
mother already has one?
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SECTION FOUR: LOOKING OR A SHORTCUT....
* Do you have Cliff's Notes on Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman?
* I'm looking for videos on child abuse.
* Do you have Cliff's Notes on Beethoven's Sixth Symphony?
* Do you have a video that will show me how to put icing on a cake?
* Isn't there some way to check on the ratings of various insurance
companies if you don't know the names of the companies?
* Do you have Cliff's Notes on Murder on the Orient Express?
* I'd like to know if I can return my books by phone.
* Please tell me how I can vote by fax machine.
* Do you have videotapes on being a mortician?
* I have a list of names and addresses, and I'm looking for the
phone numbers. Is there a quicker way to find them, besides
looking them up in the telephone directory?
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SECTION FIVE: PRACTICAL PROBLEMS
* I need a few books about Black history as it relates to
cosmetology.
* I need a book with ten thousand pages.
* Do you have something to help my child prepare for the
Kindergarten standardized tests?
* Do you have Japanese newspapers? My son needs to get some baseball
scores.
* I need a biography of Jesus Christ. I want to know if he was a
vegetarian.
* What sort of sign is posted by water with sharks in it?
* My husband works with lead. I would like to know if levels of lead
can be transmitted through the sperm. I am pregnant now and would
like to know if any defects could be caused to the baby by my
husband.
* [Phone call] Do you have any videos on having a baby? I've gone
into labor early and I didn't have a chance to finish my Lamaze
class.
* Do you have a book that tells me how to dig graves?
* I want something on prenatal teaching -- how to teach your fetus.
* Can you give me the book value for a 1984 Pontiac Sunbird? [The
last year Pontiac made the Sunbird was 1980.]
* Is a lady there with a green jacket on?
* Do you have catalogs of cakes?
* I need to know the proper format for a proclamation.
* I can't get your catalog computer to make a capital letter. What
key do you push to get capitals?
* I'm looking for a book to help my cat. She is in mourning for the
other cat, who just passed away.
* [Telephone call] Yesterday I was using a book there in your
reference section. It's black and orange. Can you tell me the
title of that book?
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SECTION SIX: I THOUGHT THE LIBRARY HAD EVERYTHING
* What religion is a person of Russian descent?
* CHILD: I want the address and phone number of California.
LIBRARIAN: What particular place in California? CHILD: Just the
whole state. MOTHER: We got it here before, but we misplaced it.
* I want a list of all the men who were soldiers in the Civil War.
* Where can I find information about every Russian product sold in
the U.S.? I need to know what they are and what companies
manufacture them.
* How many states are there in the United States? Are you sure it's
fifty? I thought it was fifty-one.
* What type of blood does a gorilla have?
* I need to know the date (month and year) when the first boat was
made.
* What is the official definition of "quasi-government
organization"? Not the dictionary definition -- I need the
official government definition.
* I need some pictures of the work of a batik artist named Tina
Dunkley.
* My teacher told me that you have blueprints for all public
buildings. Where are they?
* I need a photograph of what prehistoric man wore.
* When was the very first test given? I just need the
year.
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SECTION SEVEN: WHAT WE HAVE HERE....
* PATRON: I want books on how to host a party. It's a shower.
LIBRARIAN: A wedding shower? PATRON: No, a bridal shower.
* PATRON: Where can I find a map of Seattle? LIBRARIAN: Something
like a road map...? PATRON: No. A street map.
* PATRON: Do you have social studies books? LIBRARIAN: What subjects
did you need to find out about? PATRON: Uh...volcanoes.
* I'm looking for books about the people of Latin America: the
Aztecs, the Mayans, and all them.
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SECTION EIGHT: IT'S...ER...HARD TO TELL....
* What color and fabric is the Iron Curtain?
* Did Hebrewism come from Islamic? Did Islamic branch off of
Hinduism?
* How powerful is a magnifying glass?
* What court would you go to if you were accused of a crime?
* Can you tell me when the English word "pillow" was first used? Was
it before the time of Christ?
* Do you have statistics on unreported violence?
* Sometime about the year 400, there was a big scholarly meeting
where they decided what books would be in the Bible. It was
attended by the Catholics, and the Church of England, and all the
Protestant churches. What was that meeting called?
* [Phone call; patron asked for a book on organic chemistry] That
book you have, is it on a high school or college level, or is it
more like an Elementary School textbook?
* I'm writing an article on the Space Shuttle Discovery and I have
two questions. 1. Does each Space Shuttle have its own name, or do
they just call them all Discovery? 2. "Discovery" -- is that a
regular word in common use, or did they make it up for the Space
Shuttle?
* I'm looking for something about the Annapolis Convention of 1776.
It was right before the Revolutionary War, and it had to do with
the Union and the Confederates trying to get together. [Annapolis
Convention of 1787 laid the groundwork for the Constitutional
Convention.]
* Do you have an autobiography of the Emancipation Proclamation?
* Is an earthquake considered a type of weather?
[Received on Sun, 17 Mar 1996 14:50:02 -0500 ]