Who is Bob Dylan? – The Answer Wall

Bob Dylan (birth name Robert Allen Zimmerman) is an American singer-songwriter and visual artist whose 60+ year career has produced more than 600 songs in folk, rock, gospel, and other genres. He won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature and was most recently portrayed by Timothée Chalamet in the critically acclaimed 2024 biopic film called A Complete Unknown. If you are interested in learning more about Bob Dylan, here is a list of titles we have on him in our library catalog: bit.ly/bclib-bob-dylan.

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.