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.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
Chris' chat session 6/12/2009
I only had one question today and that was finding a specific article the student had a citation for. She just needed to be directed through her library's journal list to the article using the information she already had.
Chris
Chris
Friday, June 5, 2009
Library hours and Hydropower on the Nu River
I had two questions today:
My first question was about when their library closed that day. The hours link from the Policies page was undergoing maintenance so I went to the library's web page and clicked on the hours link and retrieved a closing time from there.
My second question was a student from Hawaii who needed journal articles about a hydropower dam on the Nu River in China. There were newspaper articles out there but not much journal literature. He/she was in a geography class and his/her library had a lot of good subject guides including one for geography. Unfortunately ASP, Geobase, Georef, JSTOR, etc didn't help. We began to try other guides like Political Science that included GreenFile and the Environmental Studies guide that included Project Muse but it was a struggle. We found a couple possibilities but I was 45 minutes over my time and I had to refer him/her to his/her home library for more help.
My first question was about when their library closed that day. The hours link from the Policies page was undergoing maintenance so I went to the library's web page and clicked on the hours link and retrieved a closing time from there.
My second question was a student from Hawaii who needed journal articles about a hydropower dam on the Nu River in China. There were newspaper articles out there but not much journal literature. He/she was in a geography class and his/her library had a lot of good subject guides including one for geography. Unfortunately ASP, Geobase, Georef, JSTOR, etc didn't help. We began to try other guides like Political Science that included GreenFile and the Environmental Studies guide that included Project Muse but it was a struggle. We found a couple possibilities but I was 45 minutes over my time and I had to refer him/her to his/her home library for more help.
Friday Session
Had one question today...although I missed several others that were picked up quickly. (Which was OK since I was also working on a few test scripts.) My question was whether Wells College is wireless. Checked the policies page first -- nothing. Then went to the college website and did a search for "wireless". Found a good page listing all the hotspots and sent the url with the url sending box. Patron seemed happy and wanted to know how much 24/7 cost? Referred her to Wells library with contact info. I coded as "answered" since she had the follow-up info if she really wants to know about the cost.
Re: scripts -- please let me know if you can see the scripts (just a couple that start "Osw"). I couldn't see them today, but perhaps they will come up the next time I sign on. Trouble is, I think they only appear when you are on a chat.
Re: scripts -- please let me know if you can see the scripts (just a couple that start "Osw"). I couldn't see them today, but perhaps they will come up the next time I sign on. Trouble is, I think they only appear when you are on a chat.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Blog layout
Let me know if it bothers you that this organization is the reverse of our other blog -- i.e., posts on the right. I'm finding the templates at my disposal rather restrictive, and I want to make this one a bit different so we know what we're looking at.
Welcome to askpenfield247
I've invited you all to join our new blog. Now when you post your chat summaries they can be easily searchable... and findable :-) Your solutions and questions are encouraged.
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