I thought I would start the blog out on a positive note by telling you about my favorite patron, who I call Research Guy. Research guy comes in a few days a week, usually for hours at a time. I have never seen him check out a book, use a computer, or even go into a section other than Reference. He stays there and reads things aloud to himself from dictionaries and encyclopedias. He may be schizophrenic and he gives one of our normally unflappable adult reference librarians the creeps for some reason. But he doesn't seem distressed and is always very polite, at least to me. Plus he asks interesting questions, and he's more or less the only person who uses the reference collection, so I like him.
He first asked me a question a couple of weeks ago.
RG: “Can you help me find the name of somebody? He was a famous French pilot. It was saint ex-something.”
Me (double-checking on Wikipedia): “Sure, just a moment. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry?”
RG: “Yes, that’s it! Thank you!”
Another day he came back and asked me if I could help him figure out a word. He described its definition. The word was ‘anachronism’ and he was thrilled when I came up with it. He opened this conversation by remembering that I had helped him identify Saint- Exupéry before, and thanked me for that again.
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