Weird & Funny Queries From When Librarians Were Google

Do you ever wonder what people did before they could look to the internet for the answers to all their bizarre and potentially embarrassing questions? There was no Google search. There was no Yahoo! Answers to turn to when you thought you might be pregnant. There were no strangers on Quora, ready to answer all your cringey relationship questions. Many of the answers to citizens burning questions were probably not in the encyclopedia, farmer's almanac, or an atlas. Instead, these queries could possibly be satisfied with a time-consuming visit to the library. But usually, at least in the era of telephones, information-hungry individuals would simply call the closes thing they had to an oracle: their local librarian.

As internet-savvy millennials, it's embarrassing to admit that we can't remember the last time we actually set foot in a physical library. Gone are the days of needing to borrow the computer to do research for school, or sneak some time on Neopets or Livejournal. And while the pandemic is definitely preventing some people from getting their book-borrowing on, library usership was already experiencing a very steady decline. According to data from the IMLS (Institute for Museum and Library Services), people in the United States only visit a library 4.1 times a year. Even more sobering? Physical library visits declined by 3% each year from 2012 to 2019. It's starting to feel like libraries, despite their transition to a virtual existence, are sadly becoming obsolete.

If you rewind as far back as the 1940's, libraries played a much consistently important role in the lives of Americans. And as we mentioned earlier, librarians were the go-to people for questions that people couldn't easily answer. We're sure that current librarians are happy to be free of this pressure. While the Internet has definitely helped ease the responsibility of library workers, their jobs, thanks to some intel from the New York Public Library, have become a lot less hilarious. A few years back, the New York institution began publishing all the crazy questions on Twitter with the hashtag #letmelibrarianthereforyou. The queries are painstakingly transcribed on index cards (remember those?) both by hand and with the assistance of a typewriter. While some of the topics are wholesome and kind of seem like they're asked by an inquisitive five year old, many are hilariously unhinged - just like the questions you might find on the aforementioned Yahoo! Answers. This gallery boasts some of the best and craziest questions, but you can find a whole lot more if you follow this link or search the hashtag yourself. We think you'll come out of it with a newfound respect for those who work in library sciences.

01
"Is it proper to go alone to Reno to get a divorce?"

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"Does the female human being belong to the mammal class?"

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Question: What is the natural enemy of a duck?

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Librarian: What do you mean?
Q: Well, a whole flight of them landed in my pool and I have waved a broom at them but all the do is look at me and quack. I thought I could introduce the natural enemy into the pool area.
-Sam
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08
"Do camels have to be licensed in India?"

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"Do you have any books on human beings?"

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"What percent of all the bathtubs in the world are in the U.S."

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14
"Does anyone have a copyright on the bible?"

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20
"How many neurotic people in the US?"

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"What does it mean when you dream you're being chased by an elephant?"

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"What does a penny weigh?"

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26
"Isn't good poetry where every other line rhymes, instead of having each line rhyme with the one before it?"

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"Has a cow upper teeth?

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29
"If a poisonous snake bites itself, will it die?"

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"Asked for the nutritional value of human flesh"

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"How many grands in a ton of wheat?"

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"What is the therapeutic value of essence of pine needles?"

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