Guinness World Records

The Chicago Tribune ran an interesting article last week titled, "Guinness Records Not What They Once Were: Why Is Simultaneous Head-Shaving a Category?"

The article speaks about the proliferation (in the writer's opinion) of less-than-serious record categories, such as "most Twinkies eaten in a minute." A Guinness spokesman, Stuart Claxton explained, 'We try to make sure the book is always a reflection of the year and the times that we live in.'

Guinness gets "about 50,000 inquiries on potential records each year, only a small percentage of which are ultimately approved."

The Guinness World Records books are very popular here at the library, and we generally buy two copies each year, one for the adult section and one for the children's section [031 GUI and J 031 GUI]. The children's copies are almost always out!

The 2013 edition, which just came out, should be arriving here at Nesmith in the near future.

Guinness World Records has its own channel on YouTube where you can watch videos of various world record attempts.