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!"
Thursday, September 27, 2012
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?
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