I'm sorry, it doesn't exist

Something of a professional vent. My apologies in advance.
I spent all of yesterday and have to spend today looking for information which doesn't exist. I consulted directly with other librarians at other major libraries specializing in our topic area and they agree; what is being asked for simply doesn't exist. Specifically, a government agency wants more recent data analysis than 2003 numbers, which they feel are out of date.
Somehow, all the librarians with whom I've consulted agree, people have gotten the idea that since so much information is available so quickly on the internet, by definition anything that isn't from this year isn't relevent, and at the same time absolutely every analysis of every data point must be available immediately.
I have to spend mid-day today explaining that the numbers they have really are the most recent reliably available, and just because they're not from 2009 doesn't make them irrelevent or outdated.

I feel your pain. I've had probably the exact same conversation about stats.

Also, once I spent hours trying to convince a client who KNEW that a certain issue had been discussed in the legislature that it had NOT been discussed yet, that it was merely in the list of things that WOULD be discussed in the future and that it was an opposition member's motion so would only be discussed on a Monday, and that the next Monday was a holiday so it wouldn't be sooner than the Monday after that. And there were 12 other motions in line ahead of it, so it might get put off even further.

I finally did get him his information when it was finally discussed in the legislature, and since he was in such a panic about it I got it from the blues (preliminary transcript) instead of waiting for Hansard (official version), which made maybe half a day's difference... three or so weeks after he asked for the info.

Oh god, I know exactly what you mean. It's not always to do with currency - sometimes our users just want to find out a particular piece of information, which they're convinced will all be in one neatly presented report that I can just find and download for them (for free, of course!); when actually what they need to find out will take some detailed analysis of several different sources (which they are perfectly capable of doing - I work for a solicitor's firm, if you're not prepared to do that kind of research then you are not cut out for lawyering). But they insist that they're *sure* the report they need exists, it *must* - in fact they think they remember reading about it somewhere... What that translates to, of course, is "it must exist because I need it to and it would save me a lot of effort if it did"!

Sorry for the rant, it's been a long day... :)

When I'm lucky, I'm able to actually find the neatly packaged, sophisticated, and detailed report, chock full of statistics, that they're looking for. And then I point out that they only have to pay the company $10,000 to get it (usually a timely marketing report from a commercial concern that does business research ... for a price).

That's the other universal misconception: everything is available online, and everything is free.

Dear group,

I once worked for the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) as a programmer.
At one stage I maintained a system which had all our data about EVERY
buisness in Australia. Very confidential and sensitive information.

One day, a heavy boss mentioned to me "...do you know that that data and the programmes that access it is probably worth a million dollars to any number of people...". This was in the late 1970's.

So yes, I have always been aware of the importance and value of information.

Didn't the USA census office turn to Hollerith punched cards because the they realized they couldn't process their 10 year census before the next one was due?

So next time a client conplains about "out of date data" just gently throw in a history lesson, re. the census.

Yours, Guido.

I think this is a fairly common issue. Sure, the information may exist, but not in one little package, or not in the format you need. We have students who need to find 6 literary criticisms that mention only a single poem, and they are invariably assigned the most obscure poem by an only marginally famous poet. That one gave us conniption fits because this was for a sophomore-level non-major class. Or the student who wanted scholarly interpretations (note the plural there) of Akmed the Dead Terrorist from Jeff Dunham's stand-up; he was disappointed to have to settle for scholarly articles about how we handle terrorist attacks with humor and articles like that.

And then there are the students who want scientific evidence of the creation or proof of a certain conspiracy theory (and I mean the really crazy ones like the Reptilians, not the JFK single bullet kind of theories). In situations like that, I show them how to do research and suggest a few books, databases, and web sources and then leave them to their own devices.

Some of it relates to a common topic of concern among all of the librarians I know; the decrease in the public's ability to actually perform research, and synthesize and analyse what they find themselves. Users expect to be able to go online and find a complete one-sentence answer to any question and worse yet they are coming more and more to believe that if it's online it's automatically reliable.
As a reference librarian, I love being able to ferret out facts and feel like all the information in the world is at my fingertips. I understand fairly fully, though, that this doesn't mean that "looking something up" fully answers a question or resolves an issue. I also understand that information is a valuable commodity.
Okay, I've descended to a stereotypical librarian "these stupid clients don't know what they're doing rant." I really just wanted to express concern. I have government project officers and other clients who understand far less about what research really is than my own high school peers did by about 10th grade.

One of the fun ones is people who want information from the 1890 U.S. federal census. Which was destroyed by fire.

People refuse to accept that the records just aren't there - "but, there were copies, right?" "well, I just need the backup information". No, people. It was 1890 (well, technically, the fire was in 1921). There were no copies, no "backup". It's gone. Nothing you can say will produce those records. They no longer exist, I don't care how much you need the info for your genealogy research.

Always a fun conversation.

Well, technically, almost all the fire damaged schedules were destroyed in 1934-5 having been adjudged useless. But it is, as you say, gone.

>4 fugitive: Personally, I love the way that the piece of vital information that they absolutely must have suddenly becomes so much less important once they realise they'll have to pay for it!

I work for a subject library that caters to Arch & LArch design majors. Every year we get a few first year students with a strong math background but no background in art, design, or other creative pursuits, who assume that when their prof tells them something like 'you need work on the transition between spaces' that there should be a big book of formulas and equations with one titled transition.

We have an instructor who will give her students one of those random quotes that pop up everywhere (as filler in newspapers, for example), and tell the class to "find out all they can" about the person who said it. Fine, if the person who said it is well-known. Often, the person will have a very, very common name, so it's impossible to figure out WHICH Joe Smith said it, or else the only reference we can find to the person is example after example of the quote. Once, I thought I had found a promising lead in the form of a man who had been the president of a grocery store chain. I called the company, to see if I was on the right track, and the secretary said the man had been dead for many years. She said he had authored the company newsletter for 40 years, but it wasn't electronic, and there was no way she was going to go through them all to see if my quote was in there. When, after a long and frustrating goose chase, I tell these things to the instructor, she just shrugs and says, "oh well." What I can't figure out is why she tells the students to go chasing after these mythical creatures that she obviously knows nothing about either. The students could make something up about the author of the quote, and the instructor wouldn't know the difference.

That is my "it doesn't exist" moment every semester!

Have you asked her "why she tells the students to go chasing after these mythical creatures"?

Many instructors assume that libraries have infinite resources and that we are all telepathic. I.e., we know what they want without them asking, and we have the ability to purchase everything.

Simple, really. Libraries are free!

I always get frustrated with these. But I still look--even when I know darn good and well that it is not there. Working in a local government archives, everyone expects that there is some statistical data that we can just snap our fingers and produce. How many marriages in the 1930s? How many men filed for divorce in the 1910s? I usually respond that the records are open for inspection at any time during business hours (which is true) and that it may take several hours for them to compile the information themselves (which is also true). Its amazing how unimportant information suddenly becomes when the person asking for it has to compile it themselves!

13> It sounds like an interesting assignment and that it would help the kids develop their research skills. So, why is it your job to do the research for them?

I had a middle school student ask me for a photograph of the pyramids being built!

(18) love that one!
I'm just starting my research for my MSc dissertation on Information Literacy - this thread has only increased my conviction that this is something that we need to teach from the very beginning in primary school.

17

I get asked for photographs of things that pre-date photography so often that it doesn't even register as odd anymore.

Before I retired, I was responsible for the Deaf Collection at Gallaudet University, the world's largest and deepest collection of material relating to deaf people and deafness. Putting aside modesty for a moment, I was arguably the world's best authority on deafness-related information.

The University has several courses related to social issues of the deaf, deaf history, deaf education, etc.

However, deaf people historically have been so ignored in the records--and continue to be ignored today--that a LOT of desired information simply doesn't exist in any shape or form.

We regularly faced the same problem of people asking for even basic-sounding deaf-related information that cannot possibly be conjured up in any meaningful way: What's the deaf divorce rate? How many deaf people graduated high school? How many people use American Sign Language as a first language? Never mind questions like: How many deaf people in the Philippines use only the oral method of communication?

I would still give each question at least a shot, though: there were occasional unexpected small "pockets" of information that no sane librarian would have thought existed.

One thing that really helped cut down on impossible expectations was that at the beginning of each school year, some of the deaf-studies professors would have me come to their introductory classes and give a presentation on the Library's deaf-related resources. One thing I always stressed, bluntly, was that, for many things, the statistics and other information just don't exist, and the students should expect that and be prepared to work around that fact. Most of them got the message and altered their expectations accordingly.

I do appreciate the dilemma that the rest of you face, though, not being able to give a similar orientation and warning to your public library clients, law firm members, etc.