So I know I like to have a little bit of fun here on Librarian in a Banana Suit.  In the last few months alone I’ve written about helping patrons find sex books, finding out if betrothed couples are second cousins or not, and scouring the catalog for novels about psychoactive soy sauce.

But there are many other facets to this job, too — many of them quite sobering.  Working closely with the public as trusted liaisons between them and their deepest information desires, we’re often asked very sensitive questions: we receive reference inquiries about domestic violence, unemployment, learning disabilities, and sexuality, and I’m astounded and humbled that patrons think of the public library as a place to find answers to these kinds of questions.  We can often refer them to social service agencies around the community, which I like to think means we’ve connected them with information that will ultimately really help them.

That’s not what happened a few weeks ago, though.  I was asked a different sort of question, one that was incredibly sensitive but indeed required the skills of a reference librarian.  Towards the end of the evening, a patron came in to look for the obituary of her friend.  She had been trying to get a hold of him on the phone for months when a mutual acquaintance told her that he’d committed suicide earlier this fall.  “I just want black and white confirmation, in print, that it’s true,” she told me.

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Just a week or so ago, the fabulous Julia Skinner authored a guest post here about crowdsourcing in 20th century libraries.  Today I’m following up with a little story about 21st century crowdsourcing!

I think librarians everywhere can relate to this classic scenario:  a woman walked into our library last weekend wanting to find a book she’d read, but she couldn’t remember anything about it.  She began by describing a paranormal time traveling plot to my colleague:  “It’s about this guy who time travels between planets.  He works at a video store, and his best friend’s disabled sister is a major player in the plot.  Oh, and there are a bunch of people who aren’t quite what they seem.”

Soon I was recruited to help out, but by this time the patron’s story had morphed and had nothing to do with intergalactic time travel:  “So this guy wanders into an old building with portals to alternate realities, and then he turns into a demon.  I think his name is Evan, and the title is something catchy like Don’t Read This Book.”  She considered for a moment and then added, “but I just read another book with an Evan, so that might just be my default when I’m trying to think of a character?”

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