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

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.

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 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?

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.

Friday Questions

Two questions in my Friday session...

1. Where can I find info on library employment? A: It was easy to find a webpage on this topic, much like ours.
2. Can someone from another university come into my college library to study? A: I'm thinking right away that the answer is obvious, but if it's so obvious then why is someone asking the question? So I tried to find the answer written out on the website somewhere. Everything on their website looked really welcoming, so I first told the student that I thought it was really unlikely that they could not do this. Then I finally actually found a page about rules of conduct that said, basically, guests are welcome if they are over 14 and follow the rules.

Chris' chat on 8/31/09

I had two questions today:

Student needed the article Teaching tools. 10-minute assessment for patient safety. Wolf L; Fiscella E; Cunningham H; Nurse Educator, 2008 Nov-Dec; 33 (6): 237-40 but was not able to get her username/password to work. In the end I needed refer her to her IT help desk. I tried to send her the article as a short-term solution but we did not have access to it.

Student needed from Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy 2004 May;53(5):422-30. Epub 2003 Nov 26. It took me a while to figure out their list of journals but unfortunately found they didn't have this year. They used ILL instead.

Chris' session 8/27/09

I worked with two questions today.

The first was someone (no email address or name) from Harrisburg Pa CC who was wanting to know where to get a good deal on a car. I asked a few questions about familiarity with the area and whether he/she was interested in new or used cars while I thought this question. I was going to recommend edmunds.com that lets you look for dealers by zip code and gives reviews but the person disconnected before I could.

The second question was a student who waned to know what book her professor had on reserve for her course. That was a simple search of their catalog's reserve module.