Any other fans of the PBS show "History Detectives"?

[Richard Wiggins]

In my opinion the show does a great job of teaching library / archive
research methods, while at the same time spinning some interesting tales.  I
especially like it when they show the use of offline resources, such as
books, old newspapers, local records on microfilm, etc.  In the episode just
aired, a researcher was trying to demonstrate (or disprove) that an heirloom
saxophone was used once (and pawned once) by jazz great Charlie Parker.

So the researcher is in the Multnomah County Public Library in Oregon,
trying to find some books that could help date Parker's experiences.  And to
find these books, he goes to ... THE CARD CATALOG!

As I say, I love it when they use offline resources, but I just went to that
library's Web site, and I see that I can look up Charlie Parker books (and
music) just fine from a couple thousand miles away.  Just makes me curious
if that card catalog is really maintained -- and if the History Detective's
search was exhaustive.  (Will not spoil end of the tale...)

/rich

PS -- they don't always go for exotic sources.   On another episode where
they're trying to find an older gentleman who painted scenes from a Japanese
internment camp in World War Two, the researcher just headed for Google.