The Things They Carried

Hi-ho, A Delgado the Librarian here, reporting from a Friday evening at the reference desk. I've had only one reference interaction tonight, divided into several parts. Its focus is the vignette (or are they short stories?) collection of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. I helped the student find basic literary criticism in Magill OnLiterature Plus, Bloom's Literary Reference Online, and Gale Literary Databases. The student also wanted basic background info on the Vietnam War so we looked in Encyclopedia Britannica. Have I told y'all yet how much I LOVE (<3) that you can select what parts of the EB article you want to print? Well, I really, really love that feature. LUV! As a bonus, I pointed the student to the Fresh Air interview that Terry Gross did with O'Brien, in particular the water buffalo shooting (sniff) and the lucky charm pantyhose. I don't think the student was as impressed with Terry as I am though. Ah well, a librarian can try, no?

I think this is one of the very few reference interactions I've had where I didn't bring up my go-to resource GVRL. There's always tomorrow though.