No one will play Trivial Pursuit with me - the downside of being a librarian.

Trivial Pursuit was created in 1979 and celebrated its 35th birthday on December 15, 2014.  I received my Masters degree in Library and Information Science in 1993, but worked in the library field for 11 years before that, mainly shelving lots of books.  In library school I had a class on library technology and the instructor briefly mentioned this thing called "the Internet," but not to worry about it because we had no need for it in the library field.  There was a great post floating around for a while that read "Librarians are the original search engines."  After all, Google did not launch until January 1996.  So, we librarians had to rely on books, magazines, and newspapers to find all that information people were requesting.

So, when you have memorized all of the Dewey Decimal section numbers (500's - Natural Science), physically walk to the correct section (Children's non-fiction, Aisle 8A) and glance through the indexes of a couple of likely-looking books (call # 594.56), you can tell that desperate kid that, weirdly enough, octopuses have 3 hearts and show them other interesting facts they can use in their research paper...due tomorrow.  Its not my fault that people ask me to find the answers to the same kind of questions as Trivial Pursuit. Maybe Trivial Pursuit's questions were created by a bunch of librarians.  However, once I have looked up the answer and told the patron, then it is stuck in my head forever, whether I want it to be or not.  You are going to remember that octopuses have 3 hearts now, aren't you? See...

Yes, there are plenty of times when I wished I had a pensieve like Professor Dumbledore, who could siphon off his excess thoughts to make more room in his brain, but unfortunately, I seem to have an enormous capacity in my noggin for hanging on to useless facts, as do most other librarians.  We thrive on learning new things.  That's the real reason most of us became librarians in the first place. And, on a side note, we are extremely organized, too.  What? Your spice rack isn't in alphabetical order? (It really does make it easier to find the spices quicker if they are.) Thanks, Melville Dewey and Library of Congress. The problem is that now I seem to have so much information in my head, that it is getting a little crowded in there and sometimes there just isn't room to store facts that I really do need, like where I just set my car keys, and whether or not I was supposed to pick up the kids after practice today.  But, I can always recall song lyrics from the 80s and what Alfred Nobel invented (dynamite, ironically), and that the Mariana Trench is 35,994 feet (almost 7 miles) deep, deeper than Mt. Everest at 29,029 feet is tall.

So, no, Trivial Pursuit opponent, I did not guess.  I did not memorize all of the cards.  I did not cheat and have my iPhone on my lap, cued up to Google.  I read it for fun, or researched it, or helped someone with that information.  Remember, we librarians really are the original search engines.  So, come on, play another round with me.  You just might learn something new.