Stumpers!: Answers to Hundreds of Questions that Stumped the Experts [Paperback]

Fred Shapiro (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 7, 1998

When people are faced with questions they can't answer, they often go to their local reference librarian.  But when reference librarians are stumped, where do they go?  The answer is Stumpers!, an Internet discussion group devoted to the questions even the professionals couldn't handle.

*  What is the value of the chemicals in the human body?
*  Why did Napoleon keep his hand in his jacket?
*  Do the people now alive outnumber the people who have ever lived?
*  Who was the last slave to serve in the White House?
*  What was the first couple on television allowed to sleep in the same bed?

The standard references are silent, but Stumpers! has answered them all, combining the traditional accuracy of reference librarians with the fast-moving wit of the Internet.  With hundreds of answers in categories ranging from Government to Sports, Folklore to Science, Stumpers! is the perfect gift for any trivia fan.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Books of trivia are always fun, but there's a tendency to find misinformation or incomplete information in these books. Of course, errors are unavoidable, but honesty about this is almost always absent from a book of random facts. Stumpers! takes a different approach, compiling questions and answers from an Internet discussion group. The great pleasure of this approach is that any one question may have a number of responses from a variety of participants in the discussion. Thus, alternatives are presented and the responses to some questions are contradicted by further responses, an intriguing approach that points to the endless nature of question asking. Plus, the chosen questions are a kick, ranging from debunking the myth of "Pope Joan" to finding the name of that little cartoon guy who used to be in the Hawaiian Punch ads. --James DiGiovanna

From the Inside Flap

When people are faced with questions they can't answer, they often go to their local reference librarian. But when reference librarians are stumped, where do they go? The answer is Stumpers!, an Internet discussion group devoted to the questions even the professionals couldn't handle.

* What is the value of the chemicals in the human body?
* Why did Napoleon keep his hand in his jacket?
* Do the people now alive outnumber the people who have ever lived?
* Who was the last slave to serve in the White House?
* What was the first couple on television allowed to sleep in the same bed?

The standard references are silent, but Stumpers! has answered them all, combining the traditional accuracy of reference librarians with the fast-moving wit of the Internet. With hundreds of answers in categories ranging from Government to Sports, Folklore to Science, Stumpers! is the perfect gift for any trivia fan.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 236 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (July 7, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375701745
• ISBN-13: 978-0375701740
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,621,993 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Answers are trivial -- it's about learning to find them., November 6, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stumpers!: Answers to Hundreds of Questions that Stumped the Experts (Paperback)

As one of the people quoted in _Stumpers_, I want to tweak your "book description" a bit. When reference librarians are stumped, we go to *other reference librarians.* Though the questions Fred has chosen are the wildest and wooliest in the Stumpers archives, they're not exactly "questions even the professionals couldn't handle." They are questions that one particular professional, who may be in a very small or very specialized library -- or whose books are packed up for a move -- couldn't find on that particular day, and forwarded to the World's Biggest Virtual Reference Desk.

That said, we do tend to get some truly gnarly stumpers. (My favorite is the carefully handwritten note one librarian received asking for the name of a song that goes "dah-dee-dah-dee-dum-de-dee-dah...") It's amazing how often the impossible ones do get answered.

The point of the Stumpers-L discussion group is that if enough of us participate, *one* at least is sure to have the answer. In the several years I've been a member, we've had contributions from subject experts in an amazing range of specialities, people you couldn't afford to hire as consultants even if you knew they existed. (The book's full of wonderful examples.)

The great thing is the spirit of collegiality among this huge diverse group of people, most of whom never meet in real life, who may have nothing in common except an addiction to finding things out. Reading the book will give you a stash of deliriously odd facts to reel out at parties, but it will also teach you something about the nature of information and the meaning of "answers."

7 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Librarians respond to new technologies--and not with "shhh!", June 29, 1999

By 

Ann Feeney [e-mail] (Chicago, Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stumpers!: Answers to Hundreds of Questions that Stumped the Experts (Paperback)

It's interesting to look at Stumpers, as the one who started the whole thing, way back in 1992, when I was a Library Science student thinking, "You know, there's an interesting new way we could use this Internet thing..."

That was way back in the days when the web was mostly compiled of gophers and ftp sites, and Lynx was pretty high-tech. It's all grown a lot since then--the Internet, Stumpers, and the network of librarians on the Internet and on Stumpers.

This collection is a tribute to the resourcefulness and mutual helpfulness of librarians, as well as a great read. Librarians are far from mouse-haired whisperers of "Shhh," hiding behind their card catalogs--they're the ones who are making revolutionary use of revolutionary technologies!