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During National Library Week, _The New Yorker_ ran a Talk of the Town
column titled "Book Him" (25 April 1994) in which it reported that
"the most challenging inquiry to date" faced by the reference librarian
they interviewed at the New York Public Library had come from a man
"looking for precise information on three subjects: photographs of Mt.
Rushmore, detailed maps of trails and parking areas around Mt. Rushmore,
books on plastic explosives."
 
SOLUTION: "I just did what I could.  I went, 'Explosives -- that's down
on the first floor, in Science and Technology.'  And I told him there was
a Map Division.  I mean, I just did it."
 
I'm now curious about how Alice Hudson or her staff in the Map Division
dealt with this, and whether they might be morally responsible had any-
thing untoward happened to Mt. Rushmore.
 
Alice?
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--
Ed Dahl
Early Cartography Specialist         Tel.: (613) 995-1452
National Archives of Canada          Fax:  (613) 995-6575
Ottawa  K1A 0N3  CANADA              Internet: [log in to unmask]