The first four items are from me - the rest are from you, and it's another bumper bundle this week!
******************************************************************************
The following is reprinted from "Private Eye" No. 1053 (3-16 May 2002)
Less than a year after the BBC announced its great biscuit cutting drive, at an annual saving of £210,000, the British Library has followed Greg Dyke's lead.
A recent internal memo told staff: "In the interests of economy, a meeting hospitality option of tea and coffee without biscuits is being introduced at both St Pancras and Boston Spa. Exec team has confirmed that the 'no biscuit' option should be used for all internal meetings, the 'with biscuit' option being reserved for those meetings involving external guests or VIPs".
Custard cream manufacturers won't be as badly affected as they were by Auntie's biscuit ban, though. The move will only save between £5,000 and £10,000 a year.
***********************************************************************
Shortly after he became Pope, John Paul II was the target of an assassination attempt as he was crossing St Peter's Square. The Economist, a UK weekly newspaper, featured this on its front cover, with a picture of the incident and the headline "The Sins of the World". Our library assistant duly stamped our copy with "Not to be Taken Away".
*************************************************************************
One of our book titles that always makes me chuckle is on an important aspect of computer programming:
"How debuggers work"
**************************************************************************
I once borrowed an audiotape from a public library that featured the work of four famous composers. I called it the "catfood tape", because the order of the composers as printed on the label was "Chopin, Liszt, Faure, Debussy".
****************************************************************************
This is a story about serendipity. Immediately upon my graduation from
library school, I was fortunate to obtain full-time employment with an
international engineering firm. I didn't know a whole lot about the
engineering field, as my undergraduate degree had been in romance
languages. About six months into my employment (which would be shortly
before Christmas), one of the engineers came into the library and asked for
contact information for a company. He had the name, city and state. I asked
what the company did. I was told it manufactured flush valves for urinals.
This was in the days long before the World Wide Web was in existence. I
thought to myself, 'Self. How hard can this be? I'll phone directory
assistance'. Which I did. The company was located in Charlotte, North
Carolina. I dialed up directory assistance for Charlotte, but there was no
listing. Then the digging began. I seem to recall looking in every business
directory I could find at the time, to no avail. The engineer came back to
me a few days later and I told him I couldn't find the contact information.
As the holidays were near, and I was travelling to Hawaii with my family, I
advised him I would look again upon my return in the new year.
On Christmas Eve, I was having drinks with my family in a hotel in Waikiki,
when I excused myself to use the men's room. I had had a few drinks, and as
I stood in the men's room, I happened to glance down. There, stamped in the
flush valve of the urinal, was my company's name. It was still located in
Charlotte, North Carolina. The reason I couldn't find it, was because it
had been merged or acquired by another company, so the name I had for the
company was now part of a double-barrelled name, and followed the hyphen,
filing it in a totally different place in the alphabet. I thought to
myself, 'Self. If I don't write this down right now, I'll forget". I
finished up, went out to see my elderly mother and asked her for a pen and
a piece of paper. When she enquired why, I responded, "I've seen something
in the men's room I need to write down". Upon my return to the men's room,
the urinal in question was in use, so I went to one of the other two. Guess
what. Different flush valve manufacturer. As was the one next to it. So I
hung out waiting for the gentleman to finish, which he did quite quickly. I
raced up to the urinal and immediately wrote down the information, which I
had so desperately been seeking!
When I returned home and back to work in January, a quick phone call to
directory assistance for Charlotte, gave me the phone number of the company
in question, which I turned over to my engineer. He asked how I figured it
out. I told him he wouldn't believe me if I told him.
********************************************************************************
There's a new book from Marcel Dekker. The title tickled me. It's
"Slippery math in public affairs."
***********************************************************************************
I recently took over the library of our small Anglican church.
(1,300 holdings)
The former librarian was somewhat of a "nut," shelving
such donated works like "1960 Travel Guide to New Orleans" or
"Building the Alaskan Pipeline"
The best though was "Bridges of Madison County" I guess the
librarian thought we needed a good book on how to enjoy sin.
(I threw out 140 books, as being completely unsuitable, and unwanted
by anyone. (but I guess the donor deducted them from his Income tax!)
*************************************************************************
Here is one - many years ago my mother was doing an evening class, and
ordered a play from the local library. Eventually she was told that 'The
Return of Godot had not yet been published'
***********************************************************************
A few years ago, one of my high school summer helpers decided, with (I promise) no encouragement from me, to show me her new navel ring. As a result of this, the Human Resources Department requested I write a formal report on the incident just in case she might file legal actions against me (a male) in the future. So far, she hasn't...standby!
************************************************************************
I am currently a children's librarian, but my first position was at the
Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
One day, while on the reference phones, a person called in asking what year
"Porky and Bess" was released. I couldn't resist. I said "it was
rele-rele-rele...put out in 1959."
******************************************************************
When I was a reference librarian in a Milwaukee branch library, a woman
came in wanting a book for her nephew who was coming for a visit. He
was now a grad student at MIT and had read this book when he last
visited her when he was 10. The book had midgets in it and maps on the
insides of both covers, and the main characters had strange names. It
took me a while to decide what book an MIT grad student might want to
read again that had strangely named characters. I came up with it! It
was The Hobbit. That was my best sleuthing experience while working
there.
*********************************************************************
The story about Woodstock brought to mind a paralegal that used the library
in the law firm I worked at the time. She was quite beautiful and a very
chic dresser. Her name was Silver. I asked her how she got the name and
she said "Oh, my parents were hippies." She went on to explain her sister
was named Summer and her brother was Umber.
[See Episode 7 for the background to this story. My assistant, on hearing the name of the brother, expressed the hope that the family name was not Bridge]
****************************************************************************************
New temping Secretary phoned me up harassed trying to locate a specific
legal tome for Partner who was ensconced in a meeting room; some searching took
place and the relevant book was found, a classic english legal work that
costs around £350 for its two volumes. Relieved secretary took it to Partner
who thanked her, stood up, placed book on chair, and sat on it. There are
certain works that she most prefered to sit on for her posture, and this was
one of them. However I feel it's a measure of her standing that she knew to
only sit on the most expensive of books.
**************************************************
[Believe it or not, the following story arrived two minutes after the one above!]
This happened this very morning..
My boss (not a librarian, but currently based in the library) - "What
happened to the big, fat, red books that were behind my desk?"
Me - "They were moved, I think. Probably to store"
Boss - "Oh - do you have any more like them?"
Me - "I imagine so - what sort of thing were they about?"
Boss - "I don't remember - its not important"
Me - "!???!!!"
Me - "So you want some big, red, fat books whose subject matter is
unimportant??"
Boss - "Yes. That's right. Like this one but not quite as fat"
At which point he waved in the air the volume that had been proping up his
computer monitor...
"The colour isn't actually important" he added, helpfully.
***********************************************