Reference Questions, 10/28/2010

It's hard to believe we've reached the end of October. This semester has flown by. I'm assisting with the APA Boot Camp this afternoon. We librarians know how to name a workshop.

1. Wanted to sign up for the APA Boot Camp
2. Wanted to sign up for the APA Boot Camp
3. Looking for a stapler or a paper clip
4. Wanted to sign up for the APA Boot Camp
5. Looking for articles on the photography code of ethics

I love it when I get real reference questions.

Reference Questions, 10/27/2010

It's 2:00 p.m. Do you know where your reference/instruction librarian is? Well, I'm on the Ref Desk, and I'm tired.

1. Having trouble printing
2. Having trouble printing
3. (Phone) Professor having trouble with the online instruction request form
4. Had a question about printing on the Macs
5. (Chat) Drive by chatting
6. Question about APA in text citations; wanted to know when you used block quotations (on quotes of 40 words or more)
7. Student needed help finding a book on the 5th floor
8. Wanted to know how to print in color
9. Wanted to know where to pick up color print outs
10. (Chat) Drive by chatting
    
11. Wanted to borrow some headphones

Steady shift with few surprises, can't ask for more than that.

Reference Questions, 10/26/2010

Tuesday night on the reference desk. Yes, I'm missing Glee for this.

1. Had question about printing in color
2. Wanted to "rent" a voice recorder
3. Question about printing money
4. Couldn't find a document she'd saved to the computer she was working on
5. Having trouble printing
6. Having trouble printing a PDF to the Pay for Print printer. She had tried to print it several times and it wasn't working. On a lucky guess I changed the Comments and forms drop down menu from document and markups to Document and then it printed
   

Printing and computer woes continue. This is really ridiculous.

Reference Questions, 10/25/2010

Team taught 2 classes this morning. Now it's Ref Desk time.

1. (Email) Question about this week's APA workshop
2. (Email) Question about next month's APA workshop
3. Needed some tape
4. Having trouble printing
5. Needed to pick up some books he had ILLed
6. Was looking for a computer to print from
7. Wanted to know where to check out books
   

Fairly steady shift. I have 1 more class to team teach and then 1 to fly solo on. This is a very busy day.

Reference Questions, 10/22/2010

Friday afternoon on the reference desk. So glad I get to go home after this hour.

1. Wanted to know where the Main Collection Level 5 is located

It was a very slow hour, Friday's often are.

Reference Questions, 10/21/2010

I have 2 shifts on the desk today. First 1 at 8:00 a.m., and the second one is at noon. I did not get a single question during the first shift.

My second shift is a lunch shift. It may get a little more traffic.

1. Question about the APA workshops that are being offered this semester
2. Wanted to sign up for the APA workshop; thought it was today, but it's next Thursday
3. Looking for books on the French Revolution
4. Looking for the book Probability and statistics for engineering and the sciences by Jay Devore
5. Needed help finding a book in the stacks
6. Wanted to know which level we are on
7. Having trouble printing on a Mac
8. Wanted to see the periodical Confederate Veteran. It is located in special collections and I could not get a hold of Gene, so I gave the man Gene's contact info.
9. Looking for the copiers
10. Needed help finding a book
11. Was trying to print from the scanner computers
    

And I was right. It was a very high traffic shift.

Reference Questions, 10/20/2010

I have an early shift here on the desk today, filling in for a sick colleague. Hello 1:00 p.m.

1. Having trouble printing
2. Looking for the bathrooms

Woohoo, two questions. At least I was able to use this time to work on a LibGuide.

Back for shift #2. Let's see how this goes...

1. Looking for an outlet to plug into

Fun times always.

Reference Questions, 10/19/2010

I'm working solo on the reference desk this evening for 2 hours. Let's hope no crises break out, because I have no back-up.

1. Looking for Mountain magick by Edain McCoy and Folk medicine in southern Appalachia by Anthony Cavender; they were both checked out
   
2. Wanted to know if pay-for-print was an option on all computers
3. Wanted to know if their were printers in the instruction classrooms
4. More fun with printing...Computer said it had no printers installed on it and I couldn't get it to locate any
5. Having trouble with an Excel spreadsheet; it was in protected mode
6. More fun with Excel...he thought it was only allowing him to type one character in the box at a time; however all characters appeared when he pressed enter
7. Looking for a fax machine; I have no idea if we have one or not so I sent him to the Front Desk
8. Looking for a pencil with an eraser
9. Looking for a pair of scissors
10. Wanted to know where to find the book The bluest eye by Toni Morrison
11. Looking for the RU Express cash machine
12. Looking for the library conference room

This was a pretty steady shift with some very fun computer/printing problems. If we had a day without printing issues, the world would probably implode.

Reference Questions, 10/18/2010

My very first solo shift on the desk. And it's a full house my friends.

1. Looking for 2 journals: Journal of Music Therapy and Music Therapy Perspectives
   
2. Had a question about how to use the 3 hole puncher
3. Having trouble opening an attachment; had him switch browsers
4. (Chat) Drive by chatting
5. Couldn't print on the 4th floor; had her come down to the 3rd floor
   
6. Wanted to know if she could check out journals
7. Looking for resources on surfing for research paper
8. Having trouble with a locked computer
9. Needed to find a computer to print from
10. Looking for a stapler
11. Wanted to borrow a glue stick; we didn't have one
12. Question about scanning
13. Having trouble printing
    

Of course I finally get a busy shift when I'm by myself! :)

Reference Questions, 10/15/2010

The lunch shift on the reference desk and I am starving! The coffee shop was out of M & M cookies. They are always out of everything on Fridays! Here we go for shift #1:

1. (Chat) APA in-text citation question
2. (Phone) Wanted to know if out theses were available online. They are not so I explained to her that she was going to have to request it through ILL.

Shift #2, the last reference shift of the day:

1. Need approval to check out reference books

The fact that students here are allowed to check out reference books is interesting. It should be pointed out that the students need reference librarian approval to check out reference books and that we only check out books that we feel are not frequently used. For example, the student from shift #2, questions 1 wanted to check out volume 1 of the Encyclopedia Britannica. I had to refuse that request.

Reference Questions, 10/13/2010

Here on the reference desk again. This time for a 2 hour, end of the day shift. Let the printing chaos begin! (Fun times.)

1. Needed help finding a book on the 4th floor
2. Needed to pay for a pay for print item; I sent her to the Front Desk
3. Wanted to check out a voice recorder; I sent him to the Front Desk
4. Having trouble printing to the pay for print printer
5. The pay for print printer was not coming up as an option to print from on her computer
6. (Chat) Looking for peer reviewed journals
7. Looking for a manila folder
8. Looking for a pair of scissors
9. Looking for the pay for print printer
10. Wanted to check out a reference book, the Encyclopedia of Furniture
11. (Chat) APA citation question concerning government websites
    

These shifts all vary so much. You never know how busy they are going to be. This was a fairly busy shift compared to the shifts I've had recently.

Reference Questions, 10/12/10

My schedule is all messed up this week. I'm here on the reference desk on a Tuesday morning, since I worked last night. I am a creature of habit and I am not a fan of having my schedule changed. Oh well, back to the normal schedule next week. I'm teaching one UNIV 100 game class today. I always look forward to those classes.

1. Having trouble logging into a computer; person who had used the computer didn't log out and so it had locked while they were still logged in; had to reset the computer
   
2. Needed a few sheets of scrap paper
3. Wanted to know where lost and found is located
4. Needed to borrow a pen
5. (Chat) Question about putting money on RU Express
   

Not too bad for a one hour shift.

Reference Questions, 10/11/2010

Here on the reference desk 8-10 tonight. Assisted with teaching a workshop on RefWorks this afternoon, so that moved my night shift to Monday for this week.

1. Wanted to know if the book Fertilizers, pills, and magnetic strips : the fate of public education in America was available; it was not
   

Another slow desk shift. A person could get spoiled by this.

Reference Questions, 10/8/2010

I had a one hour shift this morning at 8 a.m. Got zero questions. Shift #2 starts at 4 p.m. We'll see if it's any livelier. From the looks of the library, I doubt it.

And I was right, not a single question yet again. I shall get used to this soon enough.

Reference Questions, 10/6/2010

The 5:00 p.m. shift on the reference desk. Somebody stop me...

1. Wanted to know if we had a section that contained only monologues
   
2. Wanted to know how she could print in the library

Yep, we were rocking and rolling on this shift. ;o)

Reference Questions, 10/5/2010

It has been reported that the reference desk has been crazy this afternoon. We shall see if this trend continues.

1. Looking for peer-reviewed articles on football and athletes
2. Problem trying to use RU Express money to pay for a print job
3. Looking for a current book section to browse
4. Wanted to know on what floor he could find 2 different books
5. Needed help finding the Atlas of Central America
6. Student was using a citation builder and wanted to know what it meant when it asked for the title of the periodical.
7. Student was having trouble printing
8. Student wanted to know if it was OK to research the author of one of the articles she was using for a paper she was writing
9. Looking for a book on reserve
10. Looking for an atlas of Southeast Asia
11. (Email) Student had left a notebook at the Front Desk and wanted to know if it was still there
    
12. Wanted to know where she could put money on her RU Express account
13. (Email) Student wanted to know how to cite a website in APA format
14. (Email) Follow up to #13

Well, tonight was the first time I had ever answered any reference questions by email. No sweat. ;)

Reference Questions, 10/4/2010

I'm teaching 3 classes this week. The first one is today at noon. But for now, it's 8 a.m. on the reference desk.

1. Faculty member having trouble logging onto one f the reference computers
2. Faculty member looking for the DVD The Silent Lives of Boys
3. Questions about printing one sided
4. Student brought me a flash drive that had been left in a computer
   

Shift #2: Now it's time for the reference desk at the 3 o'clock hour. Rumor is that the emergency drill that we've been hearing about now for a few weeks is going down in the library sometime during this shift. Channel 7 News is here to cover it. Can we say slow news day. ;)

1. A reporter wanted to borrow a piece of paper
2. Looking for the bathroom.
3. APA in-text citation question
4. Looking for headphones
5. Looking for headphones
6. Looking for his lost flash drive
7. Wanted to know how to add cash to her RU Express for printing
8. Having trouble with Word 2010; had to restart the computer
9. (Chat) APA citation question
10. Wanted to know where to check out books
    

Well the drill happened about 4:10 or so and it cut about 40 minutes of of my 2 hour shift. A similarity between here and Jackson seems to be the APA citation questions. It is one of the most frequent questions I get. The same was true at Jackson. APA is a popular citation style and no one seems to understand it. :)

Life as an academic librarian...so far

Today begins my third week as an academic librarian, and I am very fortunate. Fortunate to have a job, and to have found such a wonderful library environment to work in. I've been doing a lot of reading, and I've been taking weekly meetings with my supervisors as they are helping me to get my library legs. The librarians here are wonderful. They are all very willing to help me out, and to teach me the ways of the library. I am reading to help supplement my knowledge of academic librarianship and library instruction. I will soon be taking over liaison duties for the Accounting, Finance and Business Law department, and I am very excited about this new challenge. I have also decided to pursue an MBA while I am here, and I will probably begin taking classes during the Summer. I have taught 3 UNIV 100 classes since I started here, and I am scheduled to teach 3 next week. I am feeling more and more at ease on the reference desk and in answering questions about the library and it's resources. I am also working with another librarian to retool the library's "How Do I?" page. In the near future I will become the go to librarian for RefWorks, and I will be team teaching upcoming workshops on it and Prezi.

It is a very exciting time for me professionally right now. A plethora of emotions wash over me. I am scared, overwhelmed and elated all at the same time. I am very happy to declare that I indeed made the right decision in pursuing reference work. I have my whole career before and I cannot wait to see how it plays out. The sky's the limit at this point. :)

Reference Questions, 10/1/2010

Ah, the first day of October. I am so very ready for Fall and cooler weather. I've been getting my wish this week. Let's hope it continues.

Shift #1 yielded no questions. I have another shift this afternoon. We'll see how it goes.

Shift #2:

1. (Chat) Looking for the an article with only the author or year. Didn't have the title or journal. :|

This was a very slow reference day. Such is the way of the world.