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Hearty hoorah to reference librarians
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By JON HAHN
Tomorrow marks the last day of Library Lovers Month, but there's time enough to note that I especially love those library reference phone folks.
Over the 20-some years I've been stumbling around looking for odd bits of information here, what I cannot find in our own library has always been available either at the Seattle or King County Library handy reference desks.
And since Thursday marks the 10th anniversary of King County Library's Answer Line (425-462-9600 or www.kcls.org) it is only fitting that we donate a little time and space to honor those who patiently and expeditiously handle our questions and almost never respond: "Because I'm your mother -- that's why!"
Here we must provide a little information for those who have until Friday to complete their homework or term-paper assignments: If you are in grades four through 12, you can go online at the above site and click on "Ask a Librarian Live" (and they are a lively bunch) and ask homework questions of a reference librarian.
At least a half-dozen times in as many recent years, I've been stumped for a song title or lyrics, and have called these people. "I need to know the lyrics for a song that goes ..." I say, then hum into the phone. The first time I did it, the woman at Answer Line was silent for what seemed like a long time. Then she said: "Do that again." And as I began humming again, she began humming along with me. "I'll be right back," she said. And in less than five minutes, we had the title and the lyrics. Just how helpful can these people be!
In the true spirit of St. Jerome, patron saint of librarians, they either will point you in the right direction or perhaps figure out how long it might take a train leaving west out of Boston at 47 miles per hour to intercept another train eastbound out of Chicago going 117 miles per hour.
"One of our people got a question about 'How many oranges would it take to fill up the Eiffel Tower?'" said Judi Schimke, one of the quick-answer librarians. Over the past decade, they've handled about 1.5 million phoned-in questions, and their online Answer Line page takes about 500 questions monthly.
"Back when we first started, I remember one of our people taking a call from a fellow who wanted to know where he could find plans to build a casket. It turned out that he was dying of cancer and wanted to build his own casket," Judi recalled sadly.
"But we also still get a lot of goofy questions from kids, and bar bets, calls from people who by the background sounds (and maybe their slurred speech?) might be in a bar and need an answer to solve a bet they've just made."
Back in the days when newspapers were a handy font of information -- and open long after the local libraries had closed -- I remember taking similar bar-bet phone calls well into the wee hours. One fellow back in Chicago was so overjoyed to learn who Joe Louis beat for the heavyweight title in 1937 (James L. Braddock, eighth-round knockout, Comiskey Park, Chicago) that he sent a cab down to the old Chicago Daily News with carry-out cocktails for the entire city desk crew.
And people still need information like that, despite all the volumes of readily available reference works and all the computer data bases. Another King County Answer Line staffer fielded a call from a lady "who wanted to know who the star of 'The Bill Cosby Show' was!" Judi said.
The dozen or so staffers can reach right out to any of about 1,400 reference books, or an Answer File in their own Web page with a listing of those standard esoteric questions such as the names of the seven height-challenged guys who helped Snow White, or the seven wonders of the world (Safeco Field ain't one of 'em) or the most-used letters in our alphabet (e, t, o, a and n).
"We're all generalists," Judi said, "but many of our people happen to be specialists in certain fields. A couple are whizzes at most sports questions. And we have one legal specialist. And another is a musician with a very good grasp of music, although mostly classical."
You can reach them 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Thursday, 8 to 6 on Friday, 9 to 5 on Saturdays and 1 to 5 on Sundays. They're tucked away in a corner of the King County Regional Library in Bellevue, but they serve as the principal reference resource for all libraries in the system. But you probably already know that your local branch library also has its own reference librarian, as well as the other helpful staffers.
St. Jerome would've been impressed with the Seattle Public Library's Quick Information system as well. It's been around since April 12, 1976, and gets about 600 phone calls (some with more than one question) every weekday, according to librarian Linda Rosenthal, who's been with the system since 1968 and was one of the founding staffers of Quick Information (206-386-4636).
The reference Web page (www.spl.org) gets about 2,800 seekers monthly, with many of those old standard questions and a goodly number of bar bet questions. "You often can hear the glasses clinking in the background, or the person who makes the call gets the answer and then says: 'Wait a minute. I want you to tell that to someone,' and he hands the phone to someone else," Linda said.
"Callers used to say that they'd looked all over and couldn't find the answer, so they were calling us as a last resort. Nowadays, they usually say that they've searched all over the Internet and still cannot find what they need. But the library seems always where they go when they've run out of places to look."
Which is librarian for: "We have all the answers, including information on where you might look to find the answer yourself."
The Seattle Public Library Quick Information Line is open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Thursday; 9 to 6 on Friday and Saturday and 1 to 5 on Sundays.
And I'd be willing to bet that both Seattle and King County quick-reference lines would be able to tell you what holidays they are closed. And Sept. 30 -- St. Jerome's Day -- ain't one of 'em.
Jon Hahn is a staff columnist who writes three times a week in the P-I. He can be reached at 206-448-8317 or e-mail him at jonhahn@seattle-pi.com.
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