Have you heard that entering your ATM code backwards will automatically summon the police? Or that Revlon lipstick contains dangerous amounts of lead? These are some of the most popular rumors pinging around the internet right now.
At the library, when we hear a rumor that seems a little too much like an urban legend, we use one of our favorite websites, http://www.snopes.com/ to find out the truth. Snopes.com's authors are Barb and David Mikkelson, a married couple who turned their hobby -- documenting urban legends -- into a full-time job. Read about their passion for truth and fiction in this interesting profile of the Mikkelsons just published by Reader's Digest.
We love the Mikkelsons and snopes.com. They save us hours of work when patrons call us and ask, "Was John Denver a military sniper in Vietnam?"*
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*No, he wasn't. See the snopes.com article: http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/denver.asp
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