Chris's chat Monday 6/15/2009

I had three questions today.

1. A student wanted to know if her library had OCLC because her brother told her about it. I explained that OCLC's Worldcat database can help with finding books and that there are a number of journal databases available through OCLC's FirstSearch service for finding articles. I also asked what her topic was. She wanted to find information on "Can chewing gum or listening to musing affedd the prgress of add". Unfortunately I was confused about her topic because it ended with "add" and no period and I didn't pick up on the fact that "add" was Attention Deficit Disorder. I thought the question was incomplete and asked for clarification and the patron got annoyed. I also asked if her professor had specified a particular type of material to use. She said no. Then she said that she would try Worldcat and come back if she didn't find what she needed. This isn't how I wanted it to end.

2. A librarian said she was just testing to see if chat was working and didn't require anything more.

3. A student wanted to limit her database search to only print titles in her library because her professor said he/she wanted them to do so. At first she said she just wanted articles in "Nursing" 2008 or 2009 or from the American Journal of Nursing so I showed her how to limit by publication name in CINAHL. The title Nursing was difficult to do this with. Then she mentioned the print requirement. I explained that she could not limit by print in the databases but only to full-text; she would need to use the links in the databases to see if the titles were available on the shelf in print or limit her search to specific titles using publication name. She ran out of time and said she'd get back to this later. I recommended she work with a librarian in her library.