Reference Librarian Practice

I was pleased with how my answering of the question went, however, compared the the relatively easy question I was asking, I was rather stumped at how to answer the one that was asked of me. Looking for a bibliographical list of book titles around a theme didn't have a clear tool to use. I fought my urge to immediately go to Amazon.com and fumbled through the Belk Library tools to find a tool that would work. My initial thought was that I needed to find a book with such a list, but once I began searching it hit me that all they needed was a search results page to give them the same answers.

I guess my room for growth would be more along the lines of trying to coax them into telling me what form they want their answer in. While I'm great at finding raw data, I'm not really sure how other people prefer to have that data presented to them. A short answer would be simple, but a more general theme is hard to pass along to a patron.

Teleplace

I really feel like Teleplace is so far past the old AET Zone, I get very frustrated when I have to spend time in the old setting. With one class being held in each place, I feel like I'm splitting time between Windows 95 and Windows 7. Everything is different, and to be the de facto "tech guru", it makes it tough to continually switch mindsets to try and troubleshoot issues that arise with the class. I'll be glad to see all of the courses move over to the newer zone!

S & D Qestions

I managed to spend 4 hours in the Yadkin Public Library last Friday working on the questions...and I still only had less than 5 to show for it. With the overlapping areas that each resource falls into, I keep losing track of what type of question I was trying to ask it to begin with! I had chosen to use "sushi" as my topic originally, and that wasted the first whole hour. I then changed to "sports" as a topic, because I was sitting beside a giant Baseball encyclopedia that was calling out to be read. I later realized that since sports was a relatively non-academic topic, it was hard to create questions directly on topic, and I had to come at it from different angles to get what I wanted. I am over half way, but am completely mentally drained! I think I've already done the easy categories now, so I don't see the difficulty level going down from here out! :-\

Looking back, I am almost embarrassed at how little I have visited my local library since I left elementary school. It used to be a weekly trek for my mom, my sister, and I to get books and we went twice a week during the summer to their special programs they would have. Before my observation I had barely been inside the doorway in years (the doorway is where they sell used books and I always get sucked in when I am trying to waste time downtown.) I was quite amazed at how little it had changed except for the large row of perhaps 20-25 computers in the center. Every section was just as I remembered...even the same turtle lived in the same aquarium...in the same spot about the periodicals shelf.

The library seemed stuck in time, but the patron's obviously weren't. During my observation, 85% of the people that walked through the door promptly signed up for a computer terminal. The only reference questions they had were about the cost of printing and where the printer was located. Two patrons came in to use the fax machine, three returned books and hung around to discuss the impending snow storm this weekend, and one guy came in look at old yearbooks (the follow up to an earlier reference question on the phone.)

There were only two genuine reference questions that stuck out to me. One lady phoned in to ask what the title was for Dave Pelzer's brother's book (it was A Brother's Journey and his name is Richard Pelzer.) The other was quite a bit more interesting...but was already wrapping up as I got there. A lady had come in from Minnesota and was in Mount Airy for a limited time doing genealogy research. She was looking for a certain listing on microfilm, but all the other libraries she had called said they didn't have it. The librarian I was observing was able to locate the item in the Regional listing and found that it was located at the Surry Community College Library (where the lady had previously called and was told no.) We called them from the Yadkin Library and had them go actually check their holdings where it was listed as being, and they found it. The lady was so excited about finding the record and was very grateful for the help.