…to answer your questions.
Librarianship is a cooperative profession. If one of us can’t answer a reference question, we consult with our colleagues. But there are occasions when no one local can find the answer. Now, through the magic of the Internet, we can consult instantly with librarians across the country, or even on the other side of the world.
In the Arts, Recreation and Literature Department at the Central Library, a common question goes like this: “Can you identify this picture from my description?” Here is one recent example. “The picture shows a man on a hillside at night. Looking up, on one side he sees the stars; on the other, he can look through the sky and see the workings of the universe. Can you identify this for me?”
None of us could identify the picture, so we sent it to the ARLIS mailing list, which reaches art libraries across the country. Within a very short time, we received the answer from several libraries, including the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the College of New Rochelle, New York.
The picture is known as the Flammarion Woodcut. It is very well known amongst scientists and historians of the Middle Ages and graced the cover of Daniel J. Boorstin’s The Discoverers. You can read the details of its history in this great Wikipedia article.
Occasionally we even go directly to the source. For a very difficult question about a Norman Rockwell illustration, we emailed the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA, “the authoritative source for all things Rockwell.” And for help in identifying a poem about Belfast, we recently contacted the Belfast City Libraries in Northern Ireland, and received a prompt reply from a kind librarian there.
~ Stan S
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