Things You Might Not Necessarily Expect to Find Here
Categories: Digital Audiobooks , Travel , Rediscoveries , Arts & Crafts
If you go to library school, you'll sooner or later have the conversation about "What if someone comes into the library and asks for a book on how to build a bomb?" As far as I can tell, the library has no how-to books on this subject, but if it did, the answer is that we would help the customer find it and not question his or her motivation.
In library school, this discussion will quickly deteriorate to questions like "What if a customer comes in and wants a book about how to make crystal meth?" The library has chosen not to buy books on this subject either, although there are certainly books about the problems associated with meth labs and addiction. The library's electronic collection, which you can access from home, however, has a government document called Clandestine Methamphetamine Labs. This 78-page PDF file includes photos, so you can recognize a meth lab if you see one, and compelling reasons why you shouldn't build your own.
Clandestine Methamphetamine Labs has been catalogued like any other government document, but the record is really just a link to a Web site. If you knew where to look, you could find it without a library card.
The library has catalogued many other electronic resources that are available online for free--like CliffsNotes--but if you get the library version, you won't have to read the annoying ads that you would if you went straight to the Internet site.
You can even download whole audio books and burn them to CD. If you have a long commute (to library school in Lexington, for example), you could save a lot of money or physical trips to the library. Muriel Spark's wonderful Memento Mori, for example, is unabridged and will keep you happy for more than six hours. There's a large selection. You will need a library card to "check out" electronic audio books.
Go to the online library catalog, click on "Advanced Search," and then scroll down to "Material Type" and click on some of the stranger tabs. You'll find weird and wonderful things I certainly wouldn't have expected, especially, I think, in the Art & Music department. Under "Reference Realia," you'll find Edward H. Hutchins's Words for the World, which is described as a tin box containing 15 sharpened pencils. "Each pencil," the catalog record says, "has a message of understanding and goodwill in English with translation into one of 15 languages." You can also look at Sleeping Around Cincinnati--a work of fiction by Diana Duncan Holmes that is told through the photographs of 50 Cincinnati bedrooms. There's also The Art of Chinese Calligraphy, which includes "pot, ink stone, ink stick, brushes, paper, and an instruction book."
The History & Genealogy Department has maps, including maps you wouldn't necessarily expect, like Iran 2006: The Latest Road Map of Iran, and a map of Chad for tourists.
Later in library school, someone (me, actually) will ask, "What if a customer comes in with a snake's fangs attached to his or her arm and wants to know if the snake is poisonous? Can we give the customer advice about the snake even if we're not trained herpetologists or medical professionals, or could we be sued if we turn out to be wrong?"
At this point, Professor W. will become annoyed and say that some situations are just not all that likely to happen.
