Descriptional Quiet Time

Hi-ho, A Delgado the Librarian here, bringing you all the fun and excitement from a Saturday afternoon at the library.

It's been quiet time here at work since I got to the desk at 1. I've made some study room reservations and a coworker at another campus called me to try and get help with a reference question stumper - info needed on biracial relationships in Civil Rights era Texas. I had a lot of problems finding resources about this topic. I looked in JSTOR (the public library has a subscription) and found nothing. Maybe it's just been so long since I've used JSTOR I don't know how to use it? Note to self: look for tutorials on JSTOR. And I found a subject heading that should have been awesome "Texas-Race relations-History-20th century" but eh, neither our library nor UT had anything that looked promising. Curses on teasing subject headings! I told my coworker that she should email the Texas History librarian and cc the student to see if the full-time librarian had super secret knowledge on the topic.

The only other questions I've had are - Is "descriptional" a word? Answer: Springer says it is and if they are bold enough to publish articles with "descriptional" in the title, by golly it must be a word to them! AND How do I cite this article that I got from GVRL? The student was pretty excited when I showed Hir the citation at the bottom of the article. Go GVRL Go!

The Things They Carried

Hi-ho, A Delgado the Librarian here, reporting from a Friday evening at the reference desk. I've had only one reference interaction tonight, divided into several parts. Its focus is the vignette (or are they short stories?) collection of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. I helped the student find basic literary criticism in Magill OnLiterature Plus, Bloom's Literary Reference Online, and Gale Literary Databases. The student also wanted basic background info on the Vietnam War so we looked in Encyclopedia Britannica. Have I told y'all yet how much I LOVE (<3) that you can select what parts of the EB article you want to print? Well, I really, really love that feature. LUV! As a bonus, I pointed the student to the Fresh Air interview that Terry Gross did with O'Brien, in particular the water buffalo shooting (sniff) and the lucky charm pantyhose. I don't think the student was as impressed with Terry as I am though. Ah well, a librarian can try, no?

I think this is one of the very few reference interactions I've had where I didn't bring up my go-to resource GVRL. There's always tomorrow though.

Anti-Viral HIV/AIDS, Classification Essays, & InfoGame Fibbery

Hi-ho, A Delgado the Librarian here! I've actually been busy today! I was even busy on Thursday night when I was at the new & quiet campus. What were you doing? you may be asking. (or maybe you weren't asking that). No matter, I'm going to tell you anyhow.

I'm going to start off saying that since I talk about my reference interactions in public blog, that I'm going to use gender neutral pronouns to help maintain anonymity. So instead of he or she I'll say Ze. Instead of her or him I'll say Hir. Got it? Good.

Thursday night I helped a student with a classification essay assignment about stocks. Ze needed at least 3 sources in 3 different formats. We chose a book (I think it was something by Suze Orman), an article from Encyclopedia Britannica, and an article from MasterFile Premier. The MFP article was very hard to come by and by the end the Ze didn't find what Ze had been looking for. Ideally, Ze wanted an article that listed the 3 types of stocks Ze wanted to discuss and gave their definitions. We never found that perfect article though we tried for nearly an hour.

Friday night I had a chat question about ACC's information literacy tutorial called the InfoGame. The student needed help answering some of the questions on the accompanying worksheet. Now, a lot of the instructors here at ACC require that their students complete the worksheet for a grade (or maybe it's for credit). I've helped a lot of the students in the library complete the worksheet and that includes students who I'm fairly positive didn't work through the rest of the tutorial. How do I know this? you may be asking. Well, I know this because the InfoGame does a really good idea of helping students come up with a topic and then helps them find good background information in Gale Virtual Reference Library. It outlines the steps needed to find GVRL from the library homepage. When a student comes to the desk and has a worksheet in Hir hands and still needs help finding GVRL and Academic Search Complete, to me, that's indicative that Ze hasn't looked at the InfoGame. But it's okay and I help them anyway because I like helping students and that's my job. However, this particular chat reference interaction chapped my hide and I'm still trying to figure out why. First, the student had difficulty with the concept of "thesis statement." And yeah, understandably, a thesis statement, especially for a student that may be ESL, can be a tricky concept. I did my best at helping. Then the student asked what Gale Virtual Reference Library was. I suggested, trying very, very hard not to be mean, that the student refer to the InfoGame because it would be very helpful to look at when completing the InfoGame worksheet. The student stated that Ze had looked at the InfoGame and taken the tutorial but that the InfoGame didn't mention GVRL at all. For some reason, when I read that, I was very embittered. I KNOW that the InfoGame talks about GVRL. Why lie? In any case, the student also asked where Ze had to email the worksheet to. Apparently it wasn't the instructor. When I told the student that I was sorry, but I didn't know the answer to Hir's question, Ze ended the chat.

Today has been way less bitter-making for me and that's a good thing. Yay! I helped a student on a chat with citing personal correspondence in MLA (I love citation questions!). I helped another student with another classification essay assignment about accounting (divided into cost/managerial, financial, and management accounting). Since we had difficulties finding information on management accounting the student claimed Ze may change it to government accounting. We used 2 books, GVRL, Encyclopedia Britannica, and a website. THEN I helped a super nice student, whom I've helped before, find resources to help Hir write a mini-paper (it was 1 page long) about the ethical & financial problems of using small doses of anti-viral drugs on pregnant women with HIV/AIDS. That was a fun question. We used GVRL, WHO, Women Children and HIV, Academic Search Complete, and an abstract that we found on a page for a retrovirus conference. And it was all for a 1 page paper! Such overachievers, I tell ya!

I'm outta here folks, gotta help close up the library!

Whew!

Hi-ho, A Delgado the Librarian here, reporting to you LIVE from a Saturday afternoon at ACC. All is fairly quiet. I've had one reference question in an hour wherein I got to help a student with what seemed to be a textbook question but wound up helping her find pharmacy technician exam prep books, THEA prep books, and how-to-write-an essay books. Done, done, and done! Go me!

Last night was sorta wacky, in a way that quiet libraries can be wacky. I got a super interesting reference question on AskAcademic. A student needed help finding articles that showed the influence of protein supplements and resistance training on enhancing strength. The student had access to SportDiscus (ACC doesn't) but had problems finding good articles. Now that I think of it, the student may have been searching for articles by typing a question into a box instead of using keywords. This is the sad thing about virtual reference - you can't see how the student is searching for stuff. You can ask but sometimes that can only go so far. We ended up finding free full-text articles on PubMed (because our totally and incredibly awesome health sciences librarian set the filters up like a total stone-cold awesomesauce librarian so that it's relatively easy to get full-text articles instead of just abstracts).

I had an in-library question in the midst of helping Protein Resistance Combo student. I got to find books about legalizing marijuana AND articles in our ProQuest New York Times database, specifically about California and Prop 19. AND then while helping PR Combo student and Legalize Marijuana student I had another AskAcademic question. A student needed help figuring out a subject on which to write a two page paper covering the history of an industry and how it changed history or impacted daily life somehow. I gave the student some topics off the top of my head - feminine hygiene, biotechnology, child care. The student chose to write about the feminine hygiene industry (which honestly, I think is a pretty cool topic) but then I had LOADS of problems finding info. Plus, my shift ends around the time we have to close the library and I started the chat at 8:45. I ended up transferring FemHy student to the librarian staffing AskColorado. So, phew, that's the low-down on last night's reference adventures. Why, why, why, does it happen like that - nothing for 3 hours, then last hour BAM? And wouldn't you know it, there's an fantastic article in Gale Virtual Reference Library called Menstruation Related Practices and Products from Cultural History of the Body. I also should have checked Business Source Complete because it has at least two (2!) suitable subject terms "feminine hygiene products" and feminine hygiene products industry." Well, for the next student that needs to find out about the industry of tampons or pads, I'm SO ready!

Faux Professional Development & Snaps

Hi-ho, A Delgado the librarian here, reporting to you LIVE from a Saturday afternoon at the library. I've had one reference question so far (How do you find textbooks?) and then I got some snaps from a student. The student told me that I'd been very helpful. Really, I love hearing that kind of stuff. I've also had the old standard "What time do you close?" questions. Yes everyone, we ARE open today and tomorrow, so please, come on in and check your Facebook accounts before we're closed on Monday.

I've been here for 2 hours so far and during that time I've read my newest Booklist email and found some professional development books to keep my mind wicked fresh with fanciful librarian ideas. I'm actually super excited about Char Booth's new book Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning: Instructional Literacy for Library Educators. I also discovered, hee heee!, a blog of librarian fashion called Librarian Wardrobe. Myself, I'm wearing a nerd shirt that says "Librarians: the original search engine" and has a ginourmous QR code on the back. Ha!

UPDATE:

Oh, Heavens to Betsy, I've just had TWO (2!!) Attachment Saving & Email questions. And I totally geeked out and made the students drive and do everything while I gestured emphatically. Go me!

Since I've never embedded a video before and there's that weird attraction between librarians and cats, I bring you The Onion's...

How To Put The Spark Back Into Your Relationship With Your Cat

NOLA Recap & DVD Search Turns Into Reference Question - News at 11

Hi-ho, A Delgado the Librarian here. I was out last week because I was living it up in The Big Easy for the ALA Annual Conference. We librarians sure can party! I walked around the French Quarter, took a mini-trip to the Garden District, and smelled the smells of New Orleans - beignets, red beans and rice, and perhaps some body fluids. I enjoyed dining there because EVERY SINGLE TABLE had hot sauce on it. Seriously, there was ketchup and hot sauce. Yummy! I collected over 40 "free" books from exhibits and went to some sessions. My favorite - Citation Tools Save Lives. CTSL was basically a big plug for EasyBib's Library Edition but oh heck, I sure do love me some citations and EasyBib Library Edition is just so dang cool. Can you tell that I'm easily excitable when it comes to citations? Plus, I got a swanky OCLC bag for attending. Hurrah!

I'm going to give myself some snaps (I'm even singing the Snap Cup song now) for turning a basic question into a reference opportunity. A student came up to the desk and asked if we had a copy of The Dead on DVD. Alas, no, we only have it in VHS and it's library use only. BUT it turns out the student was writing a paper on The Dead and needed some sources. I found two articles in my all time favorite database Gale Virtual Reference Library. GVRL, I love you so much! Of course I pointed out the citations at the bottom of the page because I really love that feature. Tomorrow I may get to geek out with Gale Literary Databases. Eeeeeee!!!