1982-1993

To the Answer Person …

REVEAL yourself! I read you more than textbooks — come out! I must know! Get used to disappointment. Besides we’re all in love with you anyway. Merry Christmas in any case. ANS.: And a happy new year to you! Alas, even the warm sunshine of your adoration will not entice me from the shade of anonymity. Anyway, not knowing makes it more fun for everyone.

Are the traffic circles on campus really perfect 360 degree circles?

ANS.: They should be since Campus Drive was placed in between the two existing “crop” rings. Old timers still talk of the bright lights (lasers) that cold night in February out in the tobacco fields decades ago – when the cigar shaped hovering object flitted away (“just like a bodacious large firefly” one said). All that remained were two perfect circled burns into the ground. Nothing has ever grown there since.

PROVIDE dating programs through the Library and get some of these tools a bit of life!

ANS.: The computer clusters, once they achieve virtual reality, will provide dating booths for the lonely.

PROMOTE the hot blonde babe in Newspapers/Microforms!
ANS.: We do, but not because of her appearance rather because of her considerable abilities in organizing, managing, and providing services to users.

The book on your screen is a sampling of the original Suggestion/Answer book that sits in the lobby of Perkins Library at Duke University. The original Suggestion/Answer book was started in 1982. It holds more than 6,500 suggestions [as of 1993], and grows daily. John Lubans, [later] Deputy University Librarian, brought the concept of a library suggestion book to Perkins when Duke recruited him from the staff of the University of Colorado. Lubans notes that “[At] Duke the suggestions are phrased more politely than they were at Colorado.” (Woodward, Pamela, “Suggestions Welcome, ” CARRILLON, 10/93/85, p. 11). And that despite some of the more light-hearted requests written into the book, “many suggestions are a prime source of feedback for our services and programs.”

Although some claim to have glimpsed the Answer person’s cape in the early morning, the person who has served the Duke community with answers on the pages of this book, continues to work anonymously. If you want to know where in Perkins is the best place to make out, or why Heinz and Schlupferl, our mythic food-sniffing Dobermans, roam the stacks, read on. If you have had the pleasure of visiting Perkins Library, to study for exams, to return books, or to find a beau, I hope this book brings back special memories for you. And perhaps you will see a question you may have had, finally answered.

Amy Spaulding, Durham, NC

[ see the links in the sidebar for the categories from the 1982-1993 sampler and items from the print edition in other years ]