Ask A Librarian: Answers You Won't Get From Google: Part 1
Last Friday, I invited students to ask me questions that went beyond simple yes and no answers. I promised that my answers would be more interesting than what they might find on Google.
I hoped that I would get enough questions to get at least one blog post. As it turned out, there have been plenty of questions, many of which are of the "If you were a tree, what kind would you be?" variety. I'll answer the non-personal questions first.
Ms. Bestor asks: "If I were to come upon a living thing of the genus 'Trachelophorus giraffa,' what would it be and where in the world would I have found it?"
That's a tricky question, Ms. Bestor. My immediate thought was, "giraffe," which would put me in Africa. But clever librarians know to check, so I did. It turns out that we are dealing with a giraffe weevil, which is a beetle with long neck, hinged in the middle. It was discovered in 2008 in Madagascar, which is the only place you can find it in the wild. You can also find it at the San Francisco Zoo, so perhaps you found it there. Madagascar, by the way, rhymes with Zanzibar - and Zanzibar is the name of another island off the coast of Africa and, interestingly enough, is also the title of a very funny Bill Harley song, which you should listen to.
Madison M. asked, "Is this optional?"
Madison, everything is optional. Well, except library challenges and taxes. Just kidding about the taxes, since you probably don't pay taxes, yet. But you will, soon enough!
From Boone: "Since the coronavirus got to America everyone has been loading up on toilet paper. Why does everyone want toilet paper now?
Boone, to answer the question you asked: Everyone wants toilet paper now for the same reasons they wanted it before: to t-p the grump neighbor's trees on Halloween and, well, for use in the bathroom. I hope I don't need to be any more detailed than that.
To answer the question I think you meant to ask - why do people want extra toilet paper now - requires a little more space. At first, some people apparently believed that toilet paper would protect them from the coronavirus if they made a wall of tp rolls around their house. That, and they figured that they could use the empty rolls for craft projects.
In any case, if we see people buying extra supplies - toilet paper, in this case - we are likely to do the same thing because, really, who wants to be the person who runs out of toilet paper?
But that fear subsided and most of us had to stay home most of the day. That meant we weren't using toilet paper at work or school, where a lot of the toilet paper comes in great big rolls that don't fit our home toilet paper dispensers. And it's hard to switch the manufacturing process.
To learn more, check out "Why Are Stores Running Low On Toilet Paper? It's Not Just Hoarding."
Max asked: "Did Carole Baskin kill her husband and feed him to the tigers?"
Max, that is certainly a popular theory, and all the best tabloids suggest that Carole was involved in a plot to kill the guy. However, I have it on good authority that Don Lewis, who was pronounced legally dead more than a decade ago, has been living under an assumed name somewhere deep in the Everglades since failing to corner the market on toilet paper.
Dani wonders, "How do you grow avocados with the pit?
Dani, you can get all kinds of details from the California Avocados website (who knew that avocados could make websites?!), including how to start the seed growing in your own house. The problem is that the little avocado plant will want to grow into a tree.
At that point, your options are limited: move to southern California, where the climate is mild enough to support avocados, or have your brother stop doing crunches all day and do something useful, like building a heated green house big enough to hold an avocado tree.
After all that, the odds of getting avocados from your tree, whether it's in California or in the greenhouse that James built, are not in your favor. The real question here is, why bother growing an avocado tree in the first place?
That's all for this morning. Look for more answers to life's persistent questions in the next installment of "Ask A Librarian."
I hoped that I would get enough questions to get at least one blog post. As it turned out, there have been plenty of questions, many of which are of the "If you were a tree, what kind would you be?" variety. I'll answer the non-personal questions first.
Ms. Bestor asks: "If I were to come upon a living thing of the genus 'Trachelophorus giraffa,' what would it be and where in the world would I have found it?"
That's a tricky question, Ms. Bestor. My immediate thought was, "giraffe," which would put me in Africa. But clever librarians know to check, so I did. It turns out that we are dealing with a giraffe weevil, which is a beetle with long neck, hinged in the middle. It was discovered in 2008 in Madagascar, which is the only place you can find it in the wild. You can also find it at the San Francisco Zoo, so perhaps you found it there. Madagascar, by the way, rhymes with Zanzibar - and Zanzibar is the name of another island off the coast of Africa and, interestingly enough, is also the title of a very funny Bill Harley song, which you should listen to.
Madison M. asked, "Is this optional?"
Madison, everything is optional. Well, except library challenges and taxes. Just kidding about the taxes, since you probably don't pay taxes, yet. But you will, soon enough!
From Boone: "Since the coronavirus got to America everyone has been loading up on toilet paper. Why does everyone want toilet paper now?
Boone, to answer the question you asked: Everyone wants toilet paper now for the same reasons they wanted it before: to t-p the grump neighbor's trees on Halloween and, well, for use in the bathroom. I hope I don't need to be any more detailed than that.
To answer the question I think you meant to ask - why do people want extra toilet paper now - requires a little more space. At first, some people apparently believed that toilet paper would protect them from the coronavirus if they made a wall of tp rolls around their house. That, and they figured that they could use the empty rolls for craft projects.
In any case, if we see people buying extra supplies - toilet paper, in this case - we are likely to do the same thing because, really, who wants to be the person who runs out of toilet paper?
But that fear subsided and most of us had to stay home most of the day. That meant we weren't using toilet paper at work or school, where a lot of the toilet paper comes in great big rolls that don't fit our home toilet paper dispensers. And it's hard to switch the manufacturing process.
To learn more, check out "Why Are Stores Running Low On Toilet Paper? It's Not Just Hoarding."
Max asked: "Did Carole Baskin kill her husband and feed him to the tigers?"
Max, that is certainly a popular theory, and all the best tabloids suggest that Carole was involved in a plot to kill the guy. However, I have it on good authority that Don Lewis, who was pronounced legally dead more than a decade ago, has been living under an assumed name somewhere deep in the Everglades since failing to corner the market on toilet paper.
Dani wonders, "How do you grow avocados with the pit?
Dani, you can get all kinds of details from the California Avocados website (who knew that avocados could make websites?!), including how to start the seed growing in your own house. The problem is that the little avocado plant will want to grow into a tree.
At that point, your options are limited: move to southern California, where the climate is mild enough to support avocados, or have your brother stop doing crunches all day and do something useful, like building a heated green house big enough to hold an avocado tree.
After all that, the odds of getting avocados from your tree, whether it's in California or in the greenhouse that James built, are not in your favor. The real question here is, why bother growing an avocado tree in the first place?
That's all for this morning. Look for more answers to life's persistent questions in the next installment of "Ask A Librarian."
Comments
Post a Comment