Themed Reference Question Days
I don’t know how common this is, but every now and then, the reference questions on a particular day seem to have common themes. Sometimes everyone asks for a particular statistic or requests biographical information for cancer researchers. Sometimes, the questions are related to something happening in the news or another event–a radio talk show might have featured a professor, so people ask for more information about her or new medical research might inspire a variety of questions. Today, several people wrote to us with requests that made it sound like they’re confused geographically (similar to: “My band is touring Europe this summer. We’ll be in London for a week. Can we play at Harvard during that time?”). We also have days when the majority of questions are totally off-the-wall questions. These happen frequently around full moons (no kidding). (Like: “What would happen if we had two left hands instead of one right and one left hand?”) And there are days when all the questions are typical and can be answered with one of the forty-some form letters we have.
Emergency room workers seem similar trends with injuries, especially as the different sports seasons begin.
Going through the e-mail can be such an adventure.
Addendum 3/17: I got a question today that seems like the inquirer asks because he thinks we’re in Britain. The page with the contact form has our mailing address on it.
