Byline: David Wecker
It'd been awhile since I'd bumped into the always scintillating Andy Balterman, a reference librarian in art and music at the main branch downtown. I wondered if the internet was about to put him out of the business of finding answers to people's questions. Absolutely not, said he:
''There's a Wild West frontier aspect to the internet. It's still young in terms of its operating dynamics and, in many ways, disorganized and not authoritative.
''The search engines are seductive and fun. But people smugly think they can type in a subject and receive the majority of the information available on the Web - when in fact, they're almost always getting just a minority. It seems obvious to me there will always be a need for the library.''
The thing about Andy is, he doesn't care if the question you have is easy or hard. The important thing is that you have a question and you're not afraid to ask it.
''People routinely walk up to my desk and say, 'Ahem, excuse me, could I bother you for a moment?' And I say, 'Bother me? I get up in the morning hoping people will have questions for me - and here you are!' ''
You never know what kind of doors an odd question might open. Just the other day, for instance, Andy received a query in the form of an e-mail from a woman who wanted to know if he could provide her with any information about the Magic 8 Ball. You probably had a Magic 8 Ball as a kid. You'd ask it a yes-or-no-type question, flip it over and an answer would appear. You might get a ''Yes, definitely'' or a ''My sources say no,'' depending on how gravity happened to impact the little 20-sided answer icosahedron suspended inside the jar of inky fluid hidden inside the mysterious black plastic orb.
It turns out Andy was better equipped than any search engine and more qualified than any reference librarian in the world to respond to that question.
Andy grew up in North Avondale in the '50s. His dad, Dexter, owned the Stuart Manufacturing Co., which made inexpensive plastic toys. The company manufactured the Wonder Wheel Designer, a toy bazooka, the Prize Animal Farm Set, the Jr. Gearshift and the Spin-a-Plate (you spun the plate on a thin dowel rod, circus-style).
Located downtown at 337 W. Fifth St., Stuart was known best for its little cowboy-and-Indian playsets, based on a 1953 Roy Rogers Double-R Bar Ranch premium created for Post cereals. As a kid, Andy was up to his ears in tiny plastic cowboys and generic Commancheros. All the kids knew Andy's dad made toys for a living, which, in Andy's mind, gave Andy a certain savoir-faire his peers lacked.
Around the third grade, Andy learned an Opie-like lesson in humility when Richard Korey moved next door. Richard's dad, Sidney, owned Alabe Crafts, manufacturer of a series of fortune-telling devices - starting with the Syco-Seer, leading to the Pocket Fortune Teller and culminating with the Magic 8 Ball.
From its international headquarters on the other side of West Fifth from Andy's dad's business, Alabe marketed a number of variations on the prognosticating 8-Ball theme. These included a flash-plated chrome model sold with a wacky plastic magician's mask and a red-and-gold lame turban, called ''The Crystal Ball.''
There was also a hillfolk version called ''Happy Fanny,'' featuring a gap-toothed mountain gal smoking a corncob pipe, elegantly packaged in a box designed to resemble an outhouse.
But none was as popular as the Magic 8 Ball, which, by the way, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
''Dick Van Dyke had one on his desk on the show,'' Andy says.
You can look up the 8 Ball on the internet at http://ofb.net/8ball/ - this unofficial home page offers an extensive treatment on the dissection of the ebony sphere.
As for Andy's dad's plastic cowboy and Indian playsets, the whole Wild West thing had lost its sheen by the early '60s. Kids started playing with rockets, and Dexter Balterman got into custom packaging.
But Stuart Manufacturing's projects have a much nicer Web site at http:// dkmoon.tripod.com/index. html. And Andy has the satisfaction of knowing that his dad's miniature plastic horses, which cost him pennies to make, are fetching $10 on e-Bay.
You can contact David Wecker at 352-2791 or via e-mail at sambets@choice.net
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