Hi-ho, A Delgado the Librarian here, reporting to you LIVE from a Thursday evening shift at the reference desk.
I'm only here for 2 hours today, gentle readers. Things have been quiet & crickety for about the last 30 minutes which has given me an opportunity to update the blogolio.
I spent some time with a student this evening working on citing YouTube videos in MLA format. Trickery I tell you, trickery! It turns out that ACC actually has a YouTube citation example on our MLA student guide page which is pretty nice (and unexpected). Oh holy smokes, readers! There's even an example for citing a Tweet in MLA. WHOA! Student and I kept second guessing ourselves whether or not to list the YouTube username as video author/creator. In the end we opted not to since we weren't confident that the YouTube username was actually the author/creator. It turns out (I've had 2 turns in this posting, does that mean I've done a 360?) that Student was asking for citation help on the paper Zhe was writing for the application for UT's Advertising program. I felt all sorts of special, not to mention scared. Luckily, Student was going to ask for help from an American Literature professor which alleviated some of my fear. Sigh.
I had another warm & fuzzy moment earlier in my shift. A student asked for help finding the link for the InfoGame from the ACC Library Services website and finding the InfoGame handout. I showed Student and Student went away happy. Yay! Approximately 20 minutes later I saw and heard Student showing a (presumably) classmate how to find the InfoGame & InfoGame handout. More YAYs!!!!!!!!!! I helped a student and the student paid it forward. I hope that means I have good karma in store for me because yes, I really am that shallow.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Midwinter Blues & Spring 2013
Hi-ho, A Delgado here, reporting to you LIVE from a Thursday night reference desk shift. Things are hoppin' here at the A-C-C. Hoppin'! Smokin'! Jivin'! I've a slew of questions tonight that I'm gonna try to rattle off real quick like.
1) Books on dance & fashion
2) Twilight books (we had Twilight the graphic novel, volume 2 {but not volume 1}, Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn)
3) Books by Zane
4) Books by Eric Jerome Dickey
5-12) Textbooks
13) Books on stock option strategies
14) Field guides for birds, mammals, and other "nature" stuff
15) Intermediate college algebra supplementary textbooks for individual study
16) Textbooks
17) AskAcademic: How do I find this article from a citation? It's supposed to be on this website.
I've felt pleasantly busy. Yay! No "I need primary sources on ____" or "My teacher says I need 5 journal articles on _____" but those will come later on the semester. To round out my time at the desk I'm working on a reference question I had earlier today. The student and I worked together to figure out a topic for a History of Mexico research paper. We narrowed it down to the Inquisition in Mexico. So far, I've discovered that scholars like to say "New Spain." Ooooo, fancypants. I'm struggling with finding text primary sources that are translated into English. I was hoping that I would be able to find some super awesome digital library that translates old school Spanish into English. I've found some truly awesome archival stuff, ex. University of Notre Dame's Inquisitio *drool*. But nothing in English. *whine* I'm gonna have to tell Mexican Inquisition Student to dig out a book. *whine* Ah well, Central TX IS the home of the Benson Latin American Collection, which is pretty durn smurfy.
Meanwhile, back at the library ranch, I'm whiny like a wee thing, not because I can't find primary source documents on the Inquisition in New Spain translated into English, but because I won't be able to join my friends in Seattle at the Big Bad Midwinter Librarian Conference. Sourcebooks is giving away (GIVING AWAY, y'all, LIKE FREE!!!!) t-shirts with their new mascot which is JANE FREAKING AUSTEN. JANE! AUSTEN!
The old mascot was Edgar Allen "The Raven" Poe, as seen on their website here.
1) Books on dance & fashion
2) Twilight books (we had Twilight the graphic novel, volume 2 {but not volume 1}, Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn)
3) Books by Zane
4) Books by Eric Jerome Dickey
5-12) Textbooks
13) Books on stock option strategies
14) Field guides for birds, mammals, and other "nature" stuff
15) Intermediate college algebra supplementary textbooks for individual study
16) Textbooks
17) AskAcademic: How do I find this article from a citation? It's supposed to be on this website.
I've felt pleasantly busy. Yay! No "I need primary sources on ____" or "My teacher says I need 5 journal articles on _____" but those will come later on the semester. To round out my time at the desk I'm working on a reference question I had earlier today. The student and I worked together to figure out a topic for a History of Mexico research paper. We narrowed it down to the Inquisition in Mexico. So far, I've discovered that scholars like to say "New Spain." Ooooo, fancypants. I'm struggling with finding text primary sources that are translated into English. I was hoping that I would be able to find some super awesome digital library that translates old school Spanish into English. I've found some truly awesome archival stuff, ex. University of Notre Dame's Inquisitio *drool*. But nothing in English. *whine* I'm gonna have to tell Mexican Inquisition Student to dig out a book. *whine* Ah well, Central TX IS the home of the Benson Latin American Collection, which is pretty durn smurfy.
Meanwhile, back at the library ranch, I'm whiny like a wee thing, not because I can't find primary source documents on the Inquisition in New Spain translated into English, but because I won't be able to join my friends in Seattle at the Big Bad Midwinter Librarian Conference. Sourcebooks is giving away (GIVING AWAY, y'all, LIKE FREE!!!!) t-shirts with their new mascot which is JANE FREAKING AUSTEN. JANE! AUSTEN!
The old mascot was Edgar Allen "The Raven" Poe, as seen on their website here.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Books that Move
Hi-ho, A Delgado the librarian here, reporting to you LIVE from a Thursday evening at the reference desk! Hotchachachacha, readers, it's been busy-ish tonight. I've had a steady amount of questions ranging from "Where can I find books on Democracy and media?" to "I need to email my teacher my paper as a folder, how do I do that?" AskAcademic has been steady too: "Where can I find articles on ethos, pathos, and logos in advertising, specifically in anti-abortion ads?" and "I need help finding a scholarly psychology article."
I'VE HAD FUN SO FAR AND THE FUN NEVER STOPS HERE AT THE REFERENCE DESK! Whoa! Somebody stop me!
Anyhoo, the Democracy & media book question turned dark and menacing when I found an awesome looking title in our library catalog. The student saw it and said, "That's exactly what I need!" We both go to the shelves and can't find the book. We look. We look some more. Now, I'll digress a wee bit and tell y'all a story.
Once upon a time, a campus community college library had a company come in and clean. After they "cleaned," they reshelved the books. But boys and girls, they didn't reshelve the books in order. Books were upside down. Books were right-side up. Books were here, books were there. Books were everywhere. But many of them were misshelved. Chaotic, I tell you. Okay, back to the posting....
Student and I can't find the book. I tell Student the story and Student's heard about it already. I get nods of recognition and headshakes of disgust. I go look for the book behind the checkout desk - no luck. Harumph. Student's cool and says, "This book is good, I can use this for my report," and holds up a book Student had found as backup. I was so bitter about not being able to find the book the first time that after Student left the library I went back to the shelf. Well, what do you know? There was the book sitting on the shelf. Curses and flittersticks, I dislike it intensely when that happens to me! When you find exactly what the patron was looking for AFTER the chat is over/patron's left the library/call is disconnected. Grrrrr.... And that reminded me, dear readers, about this lovely scene from Young Frankenstein where Frankenstein tells Igor, "Damn your eyes!"
I'VE HAD FUN SO FAR AND THE FUN NEVER STOPS HERE AT THE REFERENCE DESK! Whoa! Somebody stop me!
Anyhoo, the Democracy & media book question turned dark and menacing when I found an awesome looking title in our library catalog. The student saw it and said, "That's exactly what I need!" We both go to the shelves and can't find the book. We look. We look some more. Now, I'll digress a wee bit and tell y'all a story.
Once upon a time, a campus community college library had a company come in and clean. After they "cleaned," they reshelved the books. But boys and girls, they didn't reshelve the books in order. Books were upside down. Books were right-side up. Books were here, books were there. Books were everywhere. But many of them were misshelved. Chaotic, I tell you. Okay, back to the posting....
Student and I can't find the book. I tell Student the story and Student's heard about it already. I get nods of recognition and headshakes of disgust. I go look for the book behind the checkout desk - no luck. Harumph. Student's cool and says, "This book is good, I can use this for my report," and holds up a book Student had found as backup. I was so bitter about not being able to find the book the first time that after Student left the library I went back to the shelf. Well, what do you know? There was the book sitting on the shelf. Curses and flittersticks, I dislike it intensely when that happens to me! When you find exactly what the patron was looking for AFTER the chat is over/patron's left the library/call is disconnected. Grrrrr.... And that reminded me, dear readers, about this lovely scene from Young Frankenstein where Frankenstein tells Igor, "Damn your eyes!"
Time Travel
Indulge me here as I travel back into time to report to you about last Thursday evening. I began this post while working at the desk and then became innundated with a lengthy AskAcademic question that I could not answer. Now, alas, my birthday has come and gone and the only thing that happened was that I think I lost some more of my memory. No chemicals involved, HONEST! It's just plain ole being old. I don't remember what the post was about - sad, sad, sad. Without further ado, I bring you Last Week's Blog Entry!
Hi-ho, A Delgado here reporting to you LIVE from a Thursday evening at the reference desk. The check-out desk has seen some major action tonight. At several points there was a throng of students waiting to check out headphones or laptops or books. Or all three!
It's been slowish both on AskAcademic and at the reference desk. I've used my free time to catch up on email (it never, never ends for me- whine!), chat with a fellow AskAcademic librarian staffer about living in East TX and UPDATE MY BLOG!!! For reals, I feel like this is the first week where I've had some cricket desk time. Did I tell everyone that I've gone from working 3 shifts a week to 1? Well, I have. I now work only Thursday evenings from 5-9. Working my 8-5 job plus ACC was getting to be a bit insanity-inducing. I feel much more rested so far. Hurrah!
So, back to cricket desk time. The first week of school was nonstop textbook questions and a lot of AskAcademic questions. The second week was a lot of textbook questions AND a developmental reading class heavily used the library for a class assignment to find a fiction book. We had a lot of students coming in (yay!) asking for our fiction area. The "fiction area" in our library (roughly the entire P area, according to Library of Congress, nu?) could be daunting so we directed the students to our Leisure Reading section, which is a low shelf against the wall as soon as you walk in the door. Low shelf wins over rows and rows of shelving.
My head librarian reminded me to record my desk observations (oops!) because I'd neglected my desk reporting over those two weeks. Sorry, dear readers! It's so very pleasant to be back!
Now, allow me to share with you, two snaps I collected during my slammed interim from my AskAcademic adventures.
The first was from an AskAcademic student I helped find articles on building degradation. I think I referred Building Degradation Student to Engineering Village and ScienceDirect and in response BD Student said, "THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP! You have helped me so much, thank you!"
The second was from another AskAcademic student who said "Angelica was very helpful." Well, shucks, y'all, I still got it! "BOOM!" as Chazz Michael Michaels would say from Blades of Glory.
Oh, and in other news, my sweetheart got me an iPad for an early bday present. I'm trying to gather my courage and triumph over technology. Maybe Meredith Farkas can help?
Hi-ho, A Delgado here reporting to you LIVE from a Thursday evening at the reference desk. The check-out desk has seen some major action tonight. At several points there was a throng of students waiting to check out headphones or laptops or books. Or all three!
It's been slowish both on AskAcademic and at the reference desk. I've used my free time to catch up on email (it never, never ends for me- whine!), chat with a fellow AskAcademic librarian staffer about living in East TX and UPDATE MY BLOG!!! For reals, I feel like this is the first week where I've had some cricket desk time. Did I tell everyone that I've gone from working 3 shifts a week to 1? Well, I have. I now work only Thursday evenings from 5-9. Working my 8-5 job plus ACC was getting to be a bit insanity-inducing. I feel much more rested so far. Hurrah!
So, back to cricket desk time. The first week of school was nonstop textbook questions and a lot of AskAcademic questions. The second week was a lot of textbook questions AND a developmental reading class heavily used the library for a class assignment to find a fiction book. We had a lot of students coming in (yay!) asking for our fiction area. The "fiction area" in our library (roughly the entire P area, according to Library of Congress, nu?) could be daunting so we directed the students to our Leisure Reading section, which is a low shelf against the wall as soon as you walk in the door. Low shelf wins over rows and rows of shelving.
My head librarian reminded me to record my desk observations (oops!) because I'd neglected my desk reporting over those two weeks. Sorry, dear readers! It's so very pleasant to be back!
Now, allow me to share with you, two snaps I collected during my slammed interim from my AskAcademic adventures.
The first was from an AskAcademic student I helped find articles on building degradation. I think I referred Building Degradation Student to Engineering Village and ScienceDirect and in response BD Student said, "THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP! You have helped me so much, thank you!"
The second was from another AskAcademic student who said "Angelica was very helpful." Well, shucks, y'all, I still got it! "BOOM!" as Chazz Michael Michaels would say from Blades of Glory.
Oh, and in other news, my sweetheart got me an iPad for an early bday present. I'm trying to gather my courage and triumph over technology. Maybe Meredith Farkas can help?
Friday, August 17, 2012
Summer Snaps: Red, White, and Blond
Hi-ho, A Delgado the Librarian here, reporting to you LIVE from a home office! I just checked my work email, y'all, and yippee skippee! I got some summer snaps from a student I helped on AskAcademic! The student completed an exit survey and left this awesome warm fuzzy about our reference interaction,"Assistance was everything I expected and more!"YAY for students completing exit surveys! That comment warmed my little librarian heart.
Now, for those of you who may be curious about this post's subtitle and wonder where in the world I got the idea for snaps, I bring you a youtube clip with what looks like Dutch subtitles. Ta-da!
Now, for those of you who may be curious about this post's subtitle and wonder where in the world I got the idea for snaps, I bring you a youtube clip with what looks like Dutch subtitles. Ta-da!
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Langston Hughes ERIC Fail
Hi-ho, A Delgado here, reporting to you LIVE from a Thursday evening at the refolio desk. It's nearing the end of summer session here at ACC and there's not much going down at the library. I keep wondering when the thundering herd will come charging in and demand for help with MLA citations or finding six sources for a paper they already wrote but need to cite something on. Strangely enough, I get that question more than you'd think, "Hey, I already wrote my paper, but my teacher wants me to include some MLA newspaper and magazine articles. Do you have any of those?"
Anyhoo, but none of that has happened tonight. Tonight was crickety. I devoted my time to checking out some of the LOEX of the West 2012 conferences (the folks in the instruction listserv talked about The Amazing Library Race). I helped, or tried to help, two students on AskAcademic. One student needed to find articles for a literature review on the high cost of employee turnover and best practices in valuing employees in a customer service-driven workplace. I suggested using Business Source Complete and trying out keywords like "best practices" "employee retention" "employee turnover." The student seemed happy and set out to start the search. The next student needed help finding an article from the ERIC database for an English class. I walked the student through finding the ERIC database through the library webpage (huzzah) and then the student found the article that ALLEGEDLY people can get to through the big bad government ERIC site. But no. No, dear readers, we both clicked on the link through the big bad government ERIC site and got an error message "PDF downloads are temporarily unavailable." Noooooooo! Okay, I thought, what are my other possible workarounds for finding an article through ERIC?
1. This article might be available through google scholar? No, it just linked back to the ERIC link with the PDF error.
2. Could it be on the author's website or CV? No.
3. This was a conference paper from 1992. Could it be on the conference's website? No
The only other way to get the paper that I could think of would be to go to an institution with all the ERIC publications on microfiche/film and print out a copy. I didn't think that was feasible for the student so I didn't suggest it. Better luck next time!
Anyhoo, but none of that has happened tonight. Tonight was crickety. I devoted my time to checking out some of the LOEX of the West 2012 conferences (the folks in the instruction listserv talked about The Amazing Library Race). I helped, or tried to help, two students on AskAcademic. One student needed to find articles for a literature review on the high cost of employee turnover and best practices in valuing employees in a customer service-driven workplace. I suggested using Business Source Complete and trying out keywords like "best practices" "employee retention" "employee turnover." The student seemed happy and set out to start the search. The next student needed help finding an article from the ERIC database for an English class. I walked the student through finding the ERIC database through the library webpage (huzzah) and then the student found the article that ALLEGEDLY people can get to through the big bad government ERIC site. But no. No, dear readers, we both clicked on the link through the big bad government ERIC site and got an error message "PDF downloads are temporarily unavailable." Noooooooo! Okay, I thought, what are my other possible workarounds for finding an article through ERIC?
1. This article might be available through google scholar? No, it just linked back to the ERIC link with the PDF error.
2. Could it be on the author's website or CV? No.
3. This was a conference paper from 1992. Could it be on the conference's website? No
The only other way to get the paper that I could think of would be to go to an institution with all the ERIC publications on microfiche/film and print out a copy. I didn't think that was feasible for the student so I didn't suggest it. Better luck next time!
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Health Care & Immigration in TX Politics Feedback with Zombie Bonus
Hi-ho, A Delgado the Librarian here, reporting to you LIVE from a Saturday afternoon at the reference desk. It's been another cricket-y Saturday here at refolio desk, readers, but ho ho ho, not to worry. I got an update from the student that I collaborated with on the TX Political Party Health Care & Immigration paper from earlier in the summer. Said Student, "We did excellent! Thank you!" Awwwww shucks, readers, it was awesome! I love it when I get feedback from students about how their papers turned out. *fist pump*
In other news, my intrepid colleague, J Casas, is in the process of creating an awesome activity packet for extra young library users. She incorporated a librarian clip art icon avatar thingamabob that she ended up repurposing as a zombie. I reckon Zombie Librarian will turn up in another activity packet. Zombie Librarian's other name is Leslie Lu. Check it out, readers!
In other news, my intrepid colleague, J Casas, is in the process of creating an awesome activity packet for extra young library users. She incorporated a librarian clip art icon avatar thingamabob that she ended up repurposing as a zombie. I reckon Zombie Librarian will turn up in another activity packet. Zombie Librarian's other name is Leslie Lu. Check it out, readers!
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