Very busy day:
One chat about employment in the library at U of Minnesota. Found that for the student; she had looked, but it was pretty well hidden.
Second on "What is communication?" styles of communication, what styles are preferred by businesses today. This was a B&S question (Bryant and Stratton lol) and took a lot of time. Did refer student to her textbook.
Third: disrepair in Minneapolis neighborhoods. Yikes. I referred the student to news resources that were local, and then I found a # of reports in the catalog on this. yay!
Fourth: information on small businesses. Again B&S question. Referred to database sources and the SBA. Then she wanted to know if she should change her topic. Since she wants to start a small business, I told her to look first and then change if she felt there wasn't enough information.
End of a long chat day.....
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Chris' chat 9-28-09
I had two questions today.
One from a student trying to get a specific article but was asked for a username and password from the vendor's site. He was coming from off campus and his campus logins would not work of course. I eventually had to refer him to his campus library for help.
My second student was from Bryant and Stratton and wanted career info about paralegals. She had used Occupational Outlook Handbook and a paralegal website another librarian had sent her. I gave her the career links we got from Jackie some time ago and recommended getting into databases to find some articles. She thought that would be a good idea but didn't want to pursue that at the time. I should have tried some paralegal association websites but didn't think about it in time.
One from a student trying to get a specific article but was asked for a username and password from the vendor's site. He was coming from off campus and his campus logins would not work of course. I eventually had to refer him to his campus library for help.
My second student was from Bryant and Stratton and wanted career info about paralegals. She had used Occupational Outlook Handbook and a paralegal website another librarian had sent her. I gave her the career links we got from Jackie some time ago and recommended getting into databases to find some articles. She thought that would be a good idea but didn't want to pursue that at the time. I should have tried some paralegal association websites but didn't think about it in time.
Friday, September 25, 2009
My September chats
09/04:
Isn't simple nice? pt1
"Is 'X' book available?"
09/11:
QFD... need a dictionary
looked it up, sent a link, but call was lost.
access
looked like article access from on-campus only (files Restricted to University IP addresses), follow-up by patron librarian: email suggesting proxy changes for off campus use.
Isn't simple nice? pt2
library hours
survy submitted on this question... very interesting... totally blank
No, wait, I can get that
Student wanted virtual tour link, realized they were not in their local chat, and signed off... 1sec before I sent the link.
Full text
Easy enough, yay, step-by-step guide given
09/18:
Isn't simple nice? pt3
sadly (for students) books can't be reserved, pulled and waiting for them ahead of time.
Login problem
B&S
gave login info, library links for searching topic...google not ok at this point. ;)
missed
QP got super slow, and then went down. as it was the end of my shift anyhow, I was not overly bothered.
09/25:
Oh! So I am doing your homework!
Student: "what is dbZ?"
Me: from NOAA, the answer, with link
Student: and can i ask about "radar reflectivity" objects that mess w return signal thanks
Me: try NOAA's site, with link to topic
Student: also is there a simple explanation to explain thermal gradient on a weather map w isobars? Thanks again
Me: "try searching the NOAA site" not stated: YOURSELF!
Student: bye!
Citation
the first chat I really 'lost' due to errors. sent link to MLA guide. I wanted to make sure the student got the link (if they did not get/read transcript) So I set to 'follow up by my' and sent link via our ref email... looks like I should explore QP more... I thought the 'Answer' button in the chat transcript I have referred to changing the status of the chat, not sending an email via QP. live and learn.
Isn't simple nice? pt1
"Is 'X' book available?"
09/11:
QFD... need a dictionary
looked it up, sent a link, but call was lost.
access
looked like article access from on-campus only (files Restricted to University IP addresses), follow-up by patron librarian: email suggesting proxy changes for off campus use.
Isn't simple nice? pt2
library hours
survy submitted on this question... very interesting... totally blank
No, wait, I can get that
Student wanted virtual tour link, realized they were not in their local chat, and signed off... 1sec before I sent the link.
Full text
Easy enough, yay, step-by-step guide given
09/18:
Isn't simple nice? pt3
sadly (for students) books can't be reserved, pulled and waiting for them ahead of time.
Login problem
unfortunatly, I was unable to solve this. Great help on the Policy page, but the suggestion did not work. I settled for giving the full contact info for patron's refdesk (which was open)
B&S
gave login info, library links for searching topic...google not ok at this point. ;)
missed
QP got super slow, and then went down. as it was the end of my shift anyhow, I was not overly bothered.
09/25:
Oh! So I am doing your homework!
Student: "what is dbZ?"
Me: from NOAA, the answer, with link
Student: and can i ask about "radar reflectivity" objects that mess w return signal thanks
Me: try NOAA's site, with link to topic
Student: also is there a simple explanation to explain thermal gradient on a weather map w isobars? Thanks again
Me: "try searching the NOAA site" not stated: YOURSELF!
Student: bye!
Citation
the first chat I really 'lost' due to errors. sent link to MLA guide. I wanted to make sure the student got the link (if they did not get/read transcript) So I set to 'follow up by my' and sent link via our ref email... looks like I should explore QP more... I thought the 'Answer' button in the chat transcript I have referred to changing the status of the chat, not sending an email via QP. live and learn.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Access of others to our resources
In response to Chris' question, although we are to help 24/7 students from all over the world, each school has licensing restrictions on what they can share. We are to send articles from our databases only to SUNY Oswego email addresses -- whether they are from Potsdam or India.
I just read the transcript for this one, and the complication is that the library through which they are asking their question is Univ of North Carolina. Who knows what kinds of resources are available at the researcher's Indian library? One alternative I might suggest would be google.scholar or other authoritative websites and free databases, depending on the topic. This student really did not stay around long to get an answer, though.
Anyway, my final thought is that perhaps this would be a good question for the conference discussion on Thursday, assuming we will have an opportunity to ask Jaclyn about best practice.
I just read the transcript for this one, and the complication is that the library through which they are asking their question is Univ of North Carolina. Who knows what kinds of resources are available at the researcher's Indian library? One alternative I might suggest would be google.scholar or other authoritative websites and free databases, depending on the topic. This student really did not stay around long to get an answer, though.
Anyway, my final thought is that perhaps this would be a good question for the conference discussion on Thursday, assuming we will have an opportunity to ask Jaclyn about best practice.
I had two questions today.
The first question was a student who's professor in a class had told him/her to look up SMART on their website. The student couldn't find it. From what I could get from the student this was an ACA class which seemed to be related to scholarships and financial aid. I could only find a reference to "Smart for Life" in reference to a change status form available from their Financial Aid Office so I was about to respond with contact information to their financial aid office when the person disconnected. The person didn't sign in with a name or email address so I couldn't followup.
The second person was from J & K State in India wanting me to send them information from my library about educational psycholory. I wasn't sure what to do with this question so I stalled form some time by asking him/her to be more specific while I tried to call around to see what you all did with questions from abroad like this. The person disconnected so I didn't have to follow through. What do you do with questions from outside the states?
The first question was a student who's professor in a class had told him/her to look up SMART on their website. The student couldn't find it. From what I could get from the student this was an ACA class which seemed to be related to scholarships and financial aid. I could only find a reference to "Smart for Life" in reference to a change status form available from their Financial Aid Office so I was about to respond with contact information to their financial aid office when the person disconnected. The person didn't sign in with a name or email address so I couldn't followup.
The second person was from J & K State in India wanting me to send them information from my library about educational psycholory. I wasn't sure what to do with this question so I stalled form some time by asking him/her to be more specific while I tried to call around to see what you all did with questions from abroad like this. The person disconnected so I didn't have to follow through. What do you do with questions from outside the states?
Monday, September 14, 2009
I had two rather lengthy questions about problems with logins.
First person was not been able to login to what I believe is his/her library's catalog. This was very confusing because the library has several logins used for several services and I couldn't get the patron to tell me what he/she was trying to do. We did establish that he/she's email ID and password stopped working a week or two ago so I found contact information for the campus IT help desk.
The second person was clicking on an Academic Search Premier link from off campus and should have been getting a campus login page like our ezproxy but instead kept getting the Ebsco login page. I also needed to refer her to her IT help desk.
First person was not been able to login to what I believe is his/her library's catalog. This was very confusing because the library has several logins used for several services and I couldn't get the patron to tell me what he/she was trying to do. We did establish that he/she's email ID and password stopped working a week or two ago so I found contact information for the campus IT help desk.
The second person was clicking on an Academic Search Premier link from off campus and should have been getting a campus login page like our ezproxy but instead kept getting the Ebsco login page. I also needed to refer her to her IT help desk.
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