Where is the biography section?

Do you ever get this question? It's so innocuous - even the Circulation staff have no problem answering this one. But why does the patron need the biographies?

My patron last night asked for the biographies and was directed there by a happy-to-please staff member. I heard the exchange and walked by and asked the patron if I could help.

Again, he said Oh I just need a biography on Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. He then volunteered the information that his son was writing a paper on Shelley in relation to her work on Frankenstein. So what he actually needed were a couple of critical reviews on Frankenstein itself along with information on the author's life, which when we're dealing with these kinds of classics, the author's life is almost always as much a study as the work itself.

So I was able to find him exactly 5 books to check out, all of which gave the son a good angle on the book, the author, and her several indiscretions outside her marriage. The patron couldn't thank me enough and offered to pay me. Imagine that! I should have asked for Starbucks cards. But the only payment I required was knowing he was returning home with books that could actually help the boy write the paper, instead of a 400 page biography on the life of an author.

What really scared me about this exchange is this: What if he hadn't volunteered the information on the son's paper and rebuffed my questioning further into his request? Or worse, what if I'd not overheard the exchange and walked him to the biography section myself to engage him in conversation? He would have returned home with the aforementioned biography along with an equally overwhelming biography on Lord Byron, with whom Mary Shelley had the alleged affair. The boy would have gotten probably 1 chapter on the period in time of which he was writing. He would have gone on thinking the library did not serve his needs and probably just googled Mary Shelley. Got some basic information on her life, but not the rich critical review of Frankenstien & on her life.

How sad.