The things I've learned so far in my reference course

General items:

• some information is just really hard to find.


• college libraries have some resources (like specialized databases) that are far superior to those found other types of libraries.


• google.com/scholar can be helpful.


• google.com/books can also be helpful.


• there are encyclopedias or dictionaries for more topics that I probably even know exist.


• some things are bears to cite.


• sometimes you have to break down and ask someone else for help.

Specific items:

• Vita Sackville-West, her husband and children.


• The book that ran for the most weeks on the NYT bestseller's list.


• There is a very nicely annotated list of all the Coretta Scott King award winners from the time of it's inception to present.


• The advantages and disadvantages of English as the official language of the USA.


• There are other poems that begin with "I wandered lonely as a cloud" than the one I learned in middle school.


• O'Henry worked under an unusual set of circumstances writing "The Gift of the Magi."


• Libby Gelman-Waxner


• Ockham's Razor


• The particulars of the "Old Deluder Satan Act."


• There are formulas for wind chill and the heat index that made me as a math teacher shudder.


• Camille St. Saens and some of his students


• The chemical properties of caffeine.


• "Bien amicalement"


• Derivations of "momick"


• Once-removed as it pertains to kin.


• Marriages of first cousins and double first cousins.


• North Carolina has a publication that tells all the local and state election results


• NC and VA share many things


• GNP and GDP


• The ALA puts out an annual publication that you can find anything and everything about current libraries. Need a name and address?


• Dame of Sark


• Mary Renault


• Trouser roles, mezzo-sopranos, Americans that sing them.


• Howard Allen O'Brien


• counties surrounding Pitt county.


• Novels set in the Urals.


• ND longitude and latitude.


• Where to purchase wall mounted maps.


• What the first publication of a law is called.


• History of the census.


• SuDocs classification.


• Where to find biographies of past and present congressional members.