Reference desk 2

Last week when I was manning the Reference desk, a man came up and was wanting to know if we had the periodical Nature. He was looking for the April 2007 issue, I was pretty sure we did, but I looked it up on the catalog anyway. It said that we had the periodical in print on the 2nd floor which is where all the periodicals are shelved and the latest issue we had was October 2007. I told the man where to find it and he went upstairs to find it. He came down a while later and said that it was not up there and that the only issues that were up there were from the 1980s. I thought that was odd and I told him that maybe it was at the bindery, since it is a bindery title. He thought that was odd and wanted to know how long that would be and I said I didn't know, but that it usually takes a month. He and his friends walked away and disappointed and I felt bad. I couldn't believe that it wasn't upstairs, and I was pretty sure that it hadn't been canceled. So I decided to go look for it myself and sure enough it was sitting there on the top shelf and it was bound. I don't if he was just looking at the pan boxes that hold the loose issues, because all that was in the pan boxes was one issue and it definitely was not from the 1980s. This leads me to my point, which is that I can only help someone so much. I thought he knew how to find it, I guess I shouldn't assume that people should know things. Right now I am still wondering what publication he was looking at. He seemed like a knowledgeable person. I was hoping he would come back and that I could show him where it was and make sure he got a copy of the article, but he didn't. Next time I will follow through and go check myself while the patron is still there.