How Many Librarians Does It Take to Find a Forgotten Book?
March 9, 2020 7:26 AM   Subscribe

What do you get when you have 20 librarians in a room, furiously searching for answers? NYPL Title Quest 2018. “It all started back in 2012, with an innocent blog post: “I Remember It Had a Blue Cover and... Finding Books by Their Plot Lines”” (updated version of this post). Title Quest 2019: Finding Forgotten Titles Together. Caveat for researchers: “[A]t least one detail someone is certain about is not right.”
posted by MonkeyToes (11 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is very cool. Also I am still hoping someone can help me with this question from 2011.
posted by Mchelly at 10:55 AM on March 9, 2020


I wonder if they have a sign up that just says "All Summer In A Day".
posted by Adridne at 12:39 PM on March 9, 2020 [4 favorites]


"I remember there was a person in it and they did something" Awww bless them. Quality librarian humor.
posted by jessamyn at 6:23 PM on March 9, 2020 [2 favorites]


I misread that as libertarians at first and was like "Do they have something against card catalogues or the Dewey decimal system?"
posted by axiom at 8:04 PM on March 9, 2020


Hey, I knew the answer to one of the queries from the 2019 post! I feel useful (or I will, once my comment is approved).
posted by alygator at 12:31 AM on March 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


Axiom: I did the same.
posted by terrapin at 4:43 AM on March 10, 2020 [1 favorite]


Smart Bitches Trashy Books has "HABO" or "Help a Bitch Out."
For example: Hero is Obsessed with Bows

It's amazing the slippery things that drift through our memories, dashing around corners when we try to grab them.
posted by ohshenandoah at 8:16 PM on March 10, 2020 [1 favorite]


I solved one!
posted by Daily Alice at 7:01 PM on March 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


Love this. Trying to figure out what the actual fuck someone means is one of my favorite parts of librarianship.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:00 AM on March 12, 2020 [4 favorites]


Adridne: "I wonder if they have a sign up that just says "All Summer In A Day"."

SOMETIMES it's "There Will Come Soft Rains."
posted by Chrysostom at 1:05 AM on March 31, 2020 [2 favorites]


I answered a couple of these (including one for a book the NYPL owns ... I found it by searching our catalog for picture books starting whose titles start with the letter Z, then skimming the descriptions until I found the one about a fairy).
posted by johnofjack at 3:28 PM on April 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


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