Bryant & Stratton must be a big institution! Had one of the career questions again today, and observed that some students may not understand the scripted directions. When the student was not responding at all to my messages and this script, I asked if she wanted some help getting to some of the resources -- and I heard back from her right away. I also noticed that the database they recommend in the script is missing (or very hard to find) on their virtual library. Tried to return to their policy page to send this feedback, but after trying 5 or so lost my motivation to figure out which of the 16 pages for B&S was the one I was using. Maybe next time...
Then I had someone from U of Minn doing education research. It's always fun when they ask you about a topic you actually have experience with :-)
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Chris' 24/7 on 7-10-09
I just had one question from a Bryant & Stratton student who wanted information about business administration in healthcare. The occupational resources we were given to use don't mix or overlap areas very well so we ended up looking for some articles. Student founds some she liked when we search Academic Search Premier together.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Catch -up
It has been a while, so here is a brief run down of my latest few sessions:
I had one student that needed to re-find an article that another librarian had helped her with. I did manage to find it; there had been a glitch? or a faulty url.
Next I had a student in need of help with Community Resource Vocational Rehab or Monarch. (yikes!) I think I gave some good advice.
(Also in that session, I avoided a very detailed law question. Thank goodness it was picked up before guilt made *me* do it.)
I was very busy last Friday.
I had a question on Lyme disease and the failure rate of testing (statistics vaguely recalled from the Discovery Chanel). I found CDC and HHS references.
I had a question on how to find the OED given the change to the interface in a campus site.
I had a question on the policy on returning books to a public library (college owned books). I could not find anything in the policy to cover this, but gave her the refdesk number.
I had one student that needed to re-find an article that another librarian had helped her with. I did manage to find it; there had been a glitch? or a faulty url.
Next I had a student in need of help with Community Resource Vocational Rehab or Monarch. (yikes!) I think I gave some good advice.
(Also in that session, I avoided a very detailed law question. Thank goodness it was picked up before guilt made *me* do it.)
I was very busy last Friday.
I had a question on Lyme disease and the failure rate of testing (statistics vaguely recalled from the Discovery Chanel). I found CDC and HHS references.
I had a question on how to find the OED given the change to the interface in a campus site.
I had a question on the policy on returning books to a public library (college owned books). I could not find anything in the policy to cover this, but gave her the refdesk number.
Monday, June 15, 2009
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.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)