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Mount Vernon

Cathedral Street

March 18, 2011

8. The Wheel

Surrounded by floor-to-ceiling bookshel ves and scattered six-inch thick tomes, four reference librarians sit at desks organized in a square configuration, facing each other. Plugged into computers and phones, the librarians answer questions from Baltimore, the state of Maryland, and, literally, the world—as they come in via telephone, e-mail, chat, and text message.

In the center of the desks, within arm’s reach of each librarian, spins what is affectionately referred to as “The Wheel.” Completed in 1969, The Wheel, is a welded, seven-foot-tall, circular bookshelf, stacked with 800 reference titles, including The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Facts About the States, The Baseball Timeline, and Larousse Gastronomique, a leading culinary resource first published in 1938.

Queries come from students and academics, and most are part of some rigorous research endeavor, but people also regularly call for crossword puzzle help, last night’s winning lottery numbers, or yesterday’s Orioles score. Other queries are more eclectic.

“Someone once asked, ‘Where do people go when they’re dead?’ Another asked, ‘Am I my cat’s mother?’” recalls library professional assistant Maggie Murphy, explaining all questions are taken seriously and provided the most credible answer found. “With the person who asked if they were their cat’s mother, we quoted a biology textbook that stated a cat is the product of two cats, and therefore she couldn’t possibly be the cat’s mother.” Psychologically or philosophically, Murphy noted, there may be a different answer.

At the moment, a fresh query arrives asking if Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite, The Planets, included a movement for Pluto—de-planeted several years ago by the International Astronomical Union. Murphy shared with her client that Holst penned the suite between 1914 and 1916, before Pluto received planetary status.

Medical and legal queries are common: But Sonia Alcántara-Antoine, information services manager, cautions that those queries also point to the limited nature of the reference librarian’s role. “As librarians we can’t give medical or legal advice,” she says. “We can cite medical or legal text, but we can’t interpret. We can’t go there.”