Saturday, January 27, 2007
A little bit of library humor for you, courtesy of one of my professors last night. (And you thought librarians were just cranky. They can also be funny.)
He was working at the reference desk in the UNT library one day, when a (probably freshman) girl came in and asked for a picture of the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock for an assignment. He pointed her to the encyclopedia. She came back after a little while, and said "I guess these will work, but they’re paintings. I need a photograph."
To which he replied, "the Mayflower and all that was back in 1620, you know."
"So?" she said.
"Well, cameras weren’t invented until the 1850s."
"So?"
"So there weren’t any cameras or photographs until nearly 250 years after the Mayflower."
"You’re wrong." she said, "my assignment says a photograph."
She pulled out the paper, and sure enough– a photograph of the Mayflower.
"It must be a typo." he said, and called the instructor. What he got was a graduate student TA.
"Yeah?"
"I’ve got one of your students here in the library with a problem."
"Yeah?"
"Her assignment says she needs a photograph of the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock."
"So?"
"Cameras weren’t invented until 250 years after that."
"So?"
"So there are no photographs of the Mayflower!"
"Oh, ok."
Then after a pause,
"Do you think TWU would have any?"