Last night at the library I was struck by a learning moment…for me. A young man, perhaps 9 or 10, stopped by the desk, and in a soft voice asked me if we had Beethoven. I started looking through the catalog for the movie about the big dog. Not seeing it, I asked the other librarian if she had seen it, totally ignoring the soft voice saying he wanted Beethoven on a CD. Eventually (and I have to say a bit ashamedly not quickly) his voice wound its way into my brain. He wanted a CD. Music, not the movie. He wanted Beethoven music.

He had been listening to some Beethoven on one of our computers and he wanted to know if we had the CD.  While we searched the CD shelves I asked if he played an instrument. He said no. I asked if he was was working on a project about Beethoven at school. He said no. Turns out he just likes listening to it. He left with one CD and ordered three more to be sent from another branch. Mostly piano concertos, a couple done with violin.

After he left I sat myself down and knocked myself up the side of the head. Because of his age I had leaped to the assumption that he wanted a movie about a dog. Even with added evidence, him softly clarifying that he wanted a CD not a DVD, I stayed with what I thought was the truth far beyond when I should have been listening to him. It’s a lesson I’ve had to learn before, and apparently I needed to learn once again. You can’t tell what a person is interested in based on the way they look.

Really.