Saturday, June 2, 2012

Formerly Common Questions I Have Not Been Asked in a While

I got a call the other day that I used to get fairly often. Back in the days when people used videotapes, we used to get calls for all sorts of VCR repair services we didn't offer. After video was supplanted by DVDs, we used to get calls about DVD polishing, but those have trailed off. But my caller didn't ask if we had a DVD polishing service, he asked about the process he needed to follow to get his discs polished. When I told him that we didn't do that, he informed me that we used to, which was news to the folks in technical services when I asked them later. 

It made me think of an old chestnut of a question that I used to get when the television show Frasier was on the air. There was a charming dog on the show, so people wanted to get one for themselves. They'd call the library and ask if we had books on them, only about 30% of the time, they'd get the breed's name a little wrong. So the call would go something like this:

Patron. Do you have any books on Jack Daniels terriers?

Me. Let me check the catalog.