The reference librarian walked into her supervisor’s office in a bit of a lather, somewhere in the neighborhood of January 1953.
“Rose, Rose, what should I do?” she said. “This guy at the front desk says he needs to know the temperature paper catches fire for some book he’s writing.”
“What, is he some kind of radical?”
“No, he says it’s some kind of science fiction story about book burners taking over.”
“Weird,” said Rose. “So what’s the problem?”
“I just can’t find it anywhere. I don’t know if anyone’s even ever studied when paper catches fire.”
“Good point. I mean, you put a match to it and ‘woof’!”
“Do you have any ideas where I could look?”
“I suppose physics textbooks, cookbooks …”
“Tried those.”
“Huh,” Rose said. “And he’s not leaving without an answer?”
“He says it’s really important.”
“OK, make something up. Get rid of him.”
“Really?”
“Sure,” Rose said. “Try this. Most ovens don’t go higher than 450, so say 451 degrees. If he asks, tell them you don’t want your cookbook to catch fire by accident, so they limit the controls on the oven. He won’t ask anyway.”
“That almost makes sense,” said the reference librarian. “Are you sure it’s OK to do that?”
“Sure,” Rose said. “Who’s going to know? Chances are he’ll never finish the book or no one will read it anyway.”
