Thanks Be to the Google Thesaurus Function
A man just came up to the reference desk, saying he had called in a hold for a book and had come in “before anyone else could get it.” Apparently it hadn’t made it down to the circulation desk, so he had been sent up to my floor to pick it up.
“What’s the title of the book?” I said.
“[Word I didn't understand] Cookbook.”
“Come again?” I said.
“[Word I didn't understand, repeated] Cookbook.”
“Can you spell that?”
“E-S, um, sol, um…” He trailed off, muttering to himself.
“I’m sorry, could you spell that again?”
“E-S-sol-” he repeated.
“No, can you spell it using letters?”
No luck. Finally I asked to tell me about the word he was trying to spell. Was it someone’s name? A company? He said it was the name of an “institute” he had visited out in Big Sur that taught classes in organic cooking. I finally found it by Googling “essolin institute,” which Google helpfully told me should have been “Esalen Institute,” which is indeed a center in Big Sur, California that offers workshops in “alternative and experiential education.” Once I had the correct spelling, the correct cookbook was a cinch to find.
My question is, how on earth did he make the librarian who pulled the book for him understand what cookbook he wanted without all those shenanigans?
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September 2nd, 2008 at 7:33 pm
My question is, why didn’t you just grab his library card and see what he had on hold. :)
But yeah, yah Google! Saves me often.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
There are two kinds of holds at my library, the kind we can trace and the kind we can’t. And of course he had the second kind. Um… I have no explanation for the reasons behind the two kinds of holds.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I’m curious how old the inquirer was, though I would suspect a baby boomer. Esalen was big in the 1960s and early 1970s, but has fallen into decline since the 1980s. It still hosts a lot of workshops, but it isn’t the countercultural nexus it once was. I’ve obviously heard of it, but I’d find it surprising for folks younger than 35 to know what it is.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Yeah, the answer to the last question (“How on earth did he make the librarian . . . understand what cookbook he wanted?”) was that the librarian he originally spoke to knew what the Esalen Institute was. In fact, it turned out that everyone in my department over the age of 40 knew what it was, and told me about it at length. So I’m just young and stupid.
But I still get a hoot thinking back on that guy going, “E… S… sol … um…”