Welcome to the home of Celebrity Librarian DeathMatch, the show that pits two teams of reference librarians against one another for bragging rights and prizes!  Listen in to the live podcast and play along through our TalkShoe Interface, or listen to past shows in the Episode Guide!  Watch this blog to see the game in progress as Command Central gives out questions and follow up information and librarians fight the clock to give the best reference in the quickest time!  Don’t forget to watch the introduction video before each podcast to learn all about our contestants and to hear genuine librarian smack talk!

How the Show Works: Ways You Can Participate at Home

Confused at how this all works? Read on and/or watch this instructional video (coming soon) that illustrates how you can listen in and participate in this live librarian showdown!

1. Come to this Website
2. Watch the Smack Talk Intro Video for the Episode
3. Listen in to the Show Streaming Live with TalkShoe
4. Answer the Questions in the Talk Shoe Interface
5. Follow Along to Command Central and Librarian Teams Postings on this Website
6. Watch the Score Board Updated Live During the Show
7. Listen to Past Shows and Watch Past Smack Talk in the Deathmatch Archives
8. Coming Soon…View the Tournament Board to Follow Your Favorite Library in the Standings

Video Promotional Trailer for the Game

Are you Smarter Than A Librarian?

Do you think that you can Google faster and with more accuracy than a reference librarian? Do you think you can find the correct sources and cite them correctly with break-neck speed?

If so, Take the Are You Smarter Than A Librarian? Challenge! All you have to do is type in what you think the correct answers are into the TalkShoe interface and tell us how you got to that conclusion! It is that simple. Just keep listening and hear what our plucky librarian heroes answer and what the judges say! You can also watch as librarians and Command Central post to the blog.

Bring it On!

Here at Celebrity Librarian DeathMatch, we think it is time to throw down your gauntlet. Contact us if your library would like to challenge another library to a Celebrity Librarian DeathMatch! Simply leave your challenge and information as a comment on any of our pages (click the comment button on the bottom of the page). It is on like Donkey Kong.

Detailed Rules of the Game

Two teams of librarians (3 each) go head to head to provide the best reference service from their own home libraries, simulating real life library reference.  Questions will come down from Command Central every five minutes, except for a randomly selected Fast Action Question that will interrupt the librarians and come before five minutes has passed.  Librarians will have to decide how much time and effort to give each question.  Questions will be sent to the librarians as well as being posted live to the blog.  All of this will be discussed by our host and two commentators (one for each library site) on TalkShoe!

Scoring is based on accuracy, time, and politeness and will be awarded by a secret team of judges made up of Reference Librarian faculty at library schools.

• Main Question = Up to 1000 pts.  Main Questions are the questions that automatically get piped down the line every 5 minutes.  Both teams have a chance to earn up to 100 points with accuracy, efficiency, and politeness.  How the 1000 pts. is distributed with these three factors in mind is up to the discretion of the judges.  For extra drama and realism, before the show starts Command Central will role a die to determine which question will be a Fast Action Question.  These are questions that are like all the others, but instead of coming at the five minute interval it will interrupt the librarians and come anywhere from 1-4 minutes after the last question has been posted.

• Extra Bonus Points = 100 or 500 pts.  Extra Bonus Points are awarded through the Reference Interview!  Just by asking a follow up question teams will be awarded 100 Extra Bonus Points!  If the question leads to more information to better answer the question the team that asked will get 500 pts!

Questions are based on the 10 Dewey Decimal classes, but like real reference questions may not easily fit in one category.  Also, a patron may make an Interlibrary Loan Request.  With each question there is also the potential that a specific librarian on the team will be requested by the patron.  Which question and what team member is decided before the game with a dice roll, however, the results of this dice roll will only be known to Command Central until it comes up in the game.

• 000 – Computer science, information & general works
• 100 – Philosophy and psychology
• 200 – Religion
• 300 – Social sciences
• 400 – Language
• 500 – Science (including mathematics)
• 600 – Technology
• 700 – Arts and recreation
• 800 – Literature
• 900 – History, geography, and biography

The format of the questions are designed to simulate real life reference.  All questions may or may not have further information. Extra Bonus Points are always awarded to teams that ask for follow up information with the Reference Interview!  Once one team asks the right question to get further information both teams will get the information, but only the team that did the Reference Interview will get Extra Bonus Points!

Phone: Pre-recorded audio clips will be sent to the librarian teams as “DeathMatch Voice Mail.”  Librarians must use their wit and cunning to come up with the best answer in the fastest time based on the information the patron leaves!  Librarians may choose to try to call the patron back for further information.  Usually, the call will go to voicemail, but sometimes the patron will pick up!  If the patron picks up librarians can ask questions to find out 2 more pieces of information.  For each new piece of information librarian teams get Extra Bonus Points and a better chance of getting the main question right!  There is no limit to time or number of follow up questions librarians can ask to try to get more information.

Email: Library patrons can email questions to their library, so our Command Central will send out questions in the form of email.  Librarians can chose to try to email the patron back.  They will either receive a vacation message (meaning the patron has no further information).  Or they will get a response.  If the librarians don’t ask the right questions in the Reference Interview the patron will respond that they don’t understand.  If the librarians ask the right questions they will get more information and Extra Bonus Points!

• In-Person Simulation Video:  Using pre-recorded video clips a patron will ‘come into the library’ with a question.  Like the other questions, librarians may ask follow up questions.  If there is no further information they will receive a video that indicates this, otherwise they can ask and find up to 2 more pieces of information to correctly answer the reference question for Extra Bonus Points!

• Chat with A Librarian:  Using the chat feature that the libraries already use on their website, Command Central will send out a question.  As with the other questions, asking insightful questions will get more information from the patron and will lead to more points!  It is important to remember though, that in the end it is not just asking the questions that counts for points — it is also that the team answers the patron’s Main Question!

Twitter: Command Central will also Tweet Questions into the libraries.  Librarians will use Twitter to ask further questions and to answer the patron’s question.  Celebrity Librarian Death Match’s Twitter account is on this website, but also can be followed as any other Twitter account (http://twitter.com/libdeathmatch).

Alternate questions will be provided should there be unforeseen technical difficulties, such as Twitter being down.