The first two items are from me - the rest are from you
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Birmingham City Libraries at one time had a chief cataloguer called Mr Plumb, and a very appropriate deputy - Mr Duff
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[The library connection is a bit strained on this one, but I think it still counts!]
The best view I ever had from a library window included the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, all 404 feet of it, less than a mile away. The view also included a roundabout on the city bypass that was the site of regular accidents caused by the adverse camber at one point. Before this was fixed, it was a regular thing for lorries to misjudge their speed and either shed their loads or land on their sides. By a strange coincidence, two of these accidents, within a few months of each other, involved vans belonging to the Mr Kipling cake company. This got me wondering whether this was a deliberate ploy to produce upside-down cakes and apple turnovers, but eventually I concluded that the cause was just exceedingly bad driving.
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I've been moving some very dusty old books around today. One of the partners at this law firm looked at me in concern and said "That's surely not a librarian's job?"
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[This one falls into the "makes you think" category]
We used to have a journal called the Law Librarian. It sits in the Librarian's office, glanced through on arrival and then left to get dusty in a box on the top shelf. The journal rebranded itself Legal Information Management last summer. It is now circulated to several people at the firm, including decision-makers, well-read and occupies a prominent position on the main Library shelves. Same journal, same writers, same topics but a new name that isn't self-focused
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Here is a story about how telephones can get you in trouble.
I was asked by a partner at the law firm I worked at to research a land use/zoning problem. The facts were somewhat unusual and I could not find anything in the case law that seemed to answer his question. I turned to a treatise on state zoning law and could not find anything to answer the question there either. I do like the phone as a reference tool and decided to call the author of the treatise. I explained I was a law librarian and had a question that was not covered in his book. I explained the facts and he asked if I was from the law firm I worked for. I was surprised because I had not identified where I worked. It turned out he was the state attorney opposing my firm in the question I had been asked to research. He was kind enough to tell me no court had yet decided the issue but he was planning on asking one to do so.
[This is similar to a story told about the Mastermind TV quiz show. On one occasion, a competitor selected a special subject for which the researchers had a real problem in finding someone to set the questions. When they eventually tracked someone down they gave him a call. "I'd love to help", said the man, "but it would be a bit unfair of me to answer the questions I'd set for myself!"]
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I came across a truly grim book title, listed under Twenty12 Publishing in the 2002 directory put out by the Arizona Book Publishers Association. The title: When I Cook, They Run: The Art of Miserable Meal Making.
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[Right, so now we're onto the cats! (and a few other pets). Several people have pointed me in the direction of a site that specialises in library cats, including a worldwide map of all cats known to spend much of their time in libraries. You can find it at the quaintly named http://www.ironfrog.com/ .
The cats listed below may not be the complete list, as I've limited it to those that demonstrate the application of weird reasoning to the choosing of the name!]
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This really made me remember back to when my husband (also a librarian) and I were in grad school for our MLS. We adopted a young female cat, being poor, starving grad students we couldn't afford to have her "fixed." We named her L.C. (Elsie is what most folks thought we were calling her!) One day a neighbors dog attacked her and broke one of her back legs, the vet was really sweet and gave us a discount on getting her leg splinted. While she was in this very vulnerable position, a Tom cat took advantage of her! Later we were blessed with a litter of kittens. We kept and named one of the kittens: Nil (for Not In Library) which later became Nilly A friend, also in grad school for her MLS took one and named her Bliss (for the Bliss classification system).
Alas, now that we have kids, Bill and I don't get to name cats anymore!
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In my more pretentious days I had two cats named Tooley (after my tutor at Ealing Library School) and Ranji (short for S R Ranganathan - only used when he needed a severe telling off) - my Mother-in-law always called him Randy which he never was having been dealt with at an early age!
One of my current cats was named Zookey/Zucky by my daughter, then aged 5, no idea why or how to spell it!
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You did ask for some funny cat names. I think this one is perfectly sensible, since there's a tale in my family that in our heritage were Dutchmen who fled the Spanish take-over there, but I have a yellow tom cat I've named Willie - short for William of Orange.
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Librarian cats' names:
(Military librarian) Cammie (short for cammouflage--the cat was black with two white spots and used to sit/lay on/next to black and very dark objects, taking great care to cover/hide both white spots.
Tyman (too-mahn, emphasis on the last syllable)--Russian word for fog--the cat was gray and VERY soft
Scherzo (Italian term used in music, roughly translated as "musical joke") The cat is gray and white--the arrangement of fur colors makes her look like she is wearing a tux, and when she sits so all her feet are lined up next to one another, it looks like a keyboard (white paws with gray spots)
Tarzan--a female cat who would jump from the bed to the window sill, but couldn't quite make it all at once as young kitten, so she would swing on the curtain to finish the journey...
Scar--a black and white kitten that had a white scar-looking mark on her face...
And librarian dogs...
Minnehaha (Indian word meaning "laughing water")--Siberian huskey that LIKES the water (earned the name as a puppy "digging" in the water dish splashing water everywhere)
Havoc (German Shepherd--reason for name is self-evident)
(Music librarian) Caesar--a beagle
Penny--a Siberian Husky/German Shepherd mix--named for the color of the reddish-tan part of her coat (like a bright, shiny penny!)
Cinderella--an ugly, mentally-deficient dog born with lots of medical problems, that needed a fairy godmother in the worst way
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We once had two cats we called Chis and Phipps, they were grey and white but when we got a third whose colour was that of a long haired caramel tabby we had to call her Vinny as short for vinegar.
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Well, my cat's name isn't extraordinary but he picked it himself.
I got him (a pure white, very large, long hair) from a family who had named him Abu - after the monkey in the Disney film Aladdin. I hated that name so decided to rechristen him Mistoffeles (yes, after the TS Eliot/Cats character). He wouldn't answer to that and after much trial and error he decided that he WOULD answer to Boo. As you can imagine, my neighbors must think my house is haunted when I call for him. :)
PS. I also have a hamster with a name larger than he is - Copernicus!
[I had a friend at school who wanted to have two black cats so that he could call them Sodom and Gomorrah. However, his mother objected to the prospect of standing on her doorstep of an evening, shouting "Sodom!" at the neighbours]
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My family consists of a mom (me) a dad, five children (aged 17-25), two dogs (brother and sister but two different litters) and two cats. The dogs are named Maverick and Dolly (her previous owner called her Conan the Pomeranian). I like country music, hence the names.
The cats are called Pixel and Digit. Digit had no name for quite a while because no one could think of an appropriate name. I was going to school at the time and I walked 40 minutes there and 40 minutes back. This gave me a lot of time to think and sometimes to get my homework done in my head. The name Digit just came to me and even though the family members were not keen on the name, it has stuck and I think it is appropriate with her sister's name. I do not know where the name Pixel came from - I think the youngest daughter named her. After all, it was she who came home with one cat and then we were only supposed to keep the sister until her friend's mother gave the OK to bring it home. Needless to say she didn't and we have kept her well (she has a much better disposition.)
My eldest daughter, who lives in another province because of work, has two cats and their names are Modem and Cable.
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Or newest cat's name is Widget, a stray who turned up in our barn (I am a small farmer as well as a librarian) one day in winter last year. She was found, like the Babes in the Wood, by following a trail of breadcrumbs, having stolen the bread I threw out for the birds. She has no tail at all, so probably has some Manx ancestry, hops like a rabbit when in a hurry and the only voice she has sounds like a bird cheeping, maybe as the result of all the bread - she was the size of my hand when I first picked her up. The dictionary describes a widget as a small unnamed device with a practical use but often thought of as a novelty; also, in IT-speak, the small program that is written in order to describe what a particular widget looks like, how it behaves, and how it interacts in response to user action - so the name seemed appropriate.
When I took her to the vet to be checked over, her age was estimated to be about 7-8 months rather than the small kitten I took her to be by her size, so was very malnourished. After the examination, the vet asked if I was a Guinness fan? I thought this was an odd medical aside, and remembered my grandmother had been recommended to drink the stuff "to build her up" (a long time ago!). But no - his question was about her name - a widget is also, apparently, the small gadget that puts the fizz in this ale when the canned version is opened.
Needless to say that Widget no longer is an unnamed novelty resident in the barn but has taken over our bed and increased a considerable amount in weight and energy, without the aid of Guinness.
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Contributions are welcomed for Episode 10 - please send them off-list to john.welford@marconi.com. Thanks.