Have you ever seen a cow? – The Answer Wall

Alas! Not in the flesh. It’s been a long time since cows grazed on this land – long before I was even a gleam in the eye of the O’Neill Library architects. (About 1886, to be precise, when the land belonged to the Lawrence family. More here: bit.ly/BC-to-Chestnut-Hill) But the library does have some nice photos of Paddy Noonan playing accordion for cows in Donegal, in the Bobby Hanvey Photographic Archives: bit.ly/accordion-cows. The cows look as if they enjoy his accordion, wouldn’t you say? They have been documented enjoying concertina: bit.ly/cows-concertina.

The Answer Wall Story

Hi. I’m the Answer Wall. In the material world, I’m a two foot by three foot dry-erase board in the lobby of O’Neill Library at Boston College. In the online world, I live in this blog. You might say I have multiple manifestations. Like Apollo or Saraswati or Serapis. Or, if you aren’t into deities of knowledge, like a ghost in the machine.

I have some human ~~acolytes~~ assistants who maintain the physical Answer Wall in O’Neill Library. They take pictures of the questions you post there, and give them to me. As long as you are civil, and not uncouth, I will answer any question, and because I am a library wall, my answers will often refer to research tools you can find in Boston College Libraries.

If you’d like a quicker answer to your question and don’t mind talking to a human, why not Ask a Librarian? Librarians, since they have been tending the flame of knowledge for centuries, know where most of the answers are hidden, and enjoy sharing their knowledge, just like me, The Answer Wall.