576 When the you-know-what hit the fan. . .

It warms my heart to read a dedication or an acknowledgement to librarians. Occasionally, a graduate student would mention my help (along with Mom, Dad, and Wife) in a PhD thesis. A romance novelist wrote a thank-you on the title page once for help in researching a feline disease, but that’s not the same as making it into the acknowledgements. A dog show researcher mentioned my help in one of his articles and donated a large sum of money to my library. One woman brought in a huge box of bakery goodies because I helped her father, a retired veterinarian, learn to use the internet. And personal thank you notes were always welcome.

But my favorite acknowledgement was from Richard Horwitz in his book Hog Ties: Pigs, Manure, and Mortality in American Culture (New York: St. Martins Press, 1998), a book based on the "other job" he held part time for fifteen years as a hired hand on a hog/grain/cattle farm in southeast Iowa.

Professor Horwitz and I had an e-mail correspondence across the corn fields and prairies about his research before the days of the web, and typing e-mail was somewhat complicated. I never actually met him in person, despite the fact we had some really important swine researchers at Ohio State.

Still, not every librarian gets her name in a book about pig poop!