stickies – The Answer Wall

June 3, 2019June 3, 2019

How does one type on a sticky note?

I’m sure you’ve heard that thing before about the probability of a thousand monkeys with typewriters eventually producing all the works of Shakespeare? Well, it’s not like that. This library employs librarians, not monkeys. Librarians might not be as fun as monkeys, but they do know how to find answers, such as how to use a Word template to print onto post-its affixed to pieces of paper, and which font (courier) most closely resembles typewriter font.

January 16, 2019January 16, 2019

How do y’all type on the stickies?

It’s magic! Well, maybe it just seems that way. It’s all done with templates (bit.ly/print-postit). First, my helpers print out copies that show the frames where the post-its go on the page. Then, every day they answer questions, they use a Word document of the template, cut and paste the answers into the post-it frames, and send the document to a printer. Remember those printed out copies? Now my helpers put actual post-its on them and put them in the manual feed tray. Print and voilà. It is magic!

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.