Who said that? When did that happen? Where the heck does that thing come from? Was that French, or what? What's that supposed to mean?

For 35 years, librarians in the United States and other countries sent puzzles they could not solve locally to "The Exchange," a column for reference librarians appearing in RQ (and later, RUSQ), the official journal of the Reference and User Services Division of the ALA. Other readers often furnished the answers--sometimes years or even decades later Puzzles and Essays from "The Exchange" organizes those perplexing questions and answers into a...

Who said that? When did that happen? Where the heck does that thing come from? Was that French, or what? What's that supposed to mean?

For 35 years, librarians in the United States and other countries sent puzzles they could not solve locally to "The Exchange," a column for reference librarians appearing in RQ (and later, RUSQ), the official journal of the Reference and User Services Division of the ALA. Other readers often furnished the answers--sometimes years or even decades later Puzzles and Essays from "The Exchange" organizes those perplexing questions and answers into a...

A daily diary of actual interactions between a reference desk librarian and his patrons

Reference Librarianship documents a year in the life of a young librarian working in the "trenches" at a library in the Midwestern United States. This one-of-a-kind book provides a daily diary of every librarian/patron transaction--no matter how mundane or absurd--to demonstrate not only how advances in technology have affected the reference librarian's job, but how the public's expectations have changed, as well. The book also includes observations by a now-retired reference librarian on the...

Reference Librarianship documents a year in the life of a young librarian working in the "trenches" at a library in the Midwestern United States. This one-of-a-kind book provides a daily diary of every librarian/patron transaction-no matter how mundane or absurd-to demonstrate not only how advances in technology have affected the reference librarian's job, but how the public's expectations have changed, as well. The book also includes observations by a now-retired reference librarian on the current state of the field based on these unedited interactions.