(Okay, we shoot the next lunatic, and take it on the lam. You with me?)The Merry Librarian is one of our favorite spots for prospecting; there’s gold in them thar hills. Yesterday, Merry – we presume familiarity and beg her forgiveness – related the terrifying tale of a reference librarian at a loss for words simply because she was absent from high school the day the class learned to read hieroglyphics in Mayan and Egyptian, missed the pop quiz in Farsi, and failed Hebrew. And yet they still let her graduate! Here’s the saga as related by Merry’s correspondent:
Here’s a situation I ran into yesterday that I thought you might find amusing. It falls under the ‘librarians should know everything about everything’ assumption that much of the general public seems to have. A man walked into our branch yesterday and asked me the following questions:
“If something were translated from English into Mayan hieroglyphics into Egyptian hieroglyphics, would someone from Iran who speaks Hebrew be able to understand it?”
Umm…I’m thinking not.
“Well, then, could you translate it for me so they could understand it?”
Why yes, of course I happen to be fluent in ALL those languages. (I am a librarian, after all.)
“Well, do you have a book that translates Mayan hieroglyphics into Egyptian hieroglyphics into Hebrew?”
I’m thinking not. But I’ll check anyway just to appease you. Nope, just as I suspected. Nothing.
“Why don’t you have any books that do that?”
I don’t think there is a book anywhere that does that.
“Well, what can you do? I need it done tonight.”
Luckily, I it was close to the end of my shift and I was able to pass this patron along to my unsuspecting coworkers – who had no idea what they were walking into and may not be very happy next time they see me. – Julia from Fountain, CO.
We hope and pray that Julia is safe and sound. Had she been raised during the 1950s, she could have used her Captain Midnight Secret Decoder Ring to help the crazed patron, her co-workers would not have had reason to call Tony Soprano for “reference librarian waste disposal services,” and this story would have a different ending. Given the circumstances, we figure Julia is settling into her new life in the Librarian Protection Program.