Reference Questions, 5/27/2011

We have "moved" the reference desk into Classroom A which is the only room with A/C in the building. We'll be using Classroom A as long as it's not in use otherwise. Which is nice considering I'm on the desk 4 hours today. Well, scratch that. The last interview for the web developer position is today and they've moved everything into Classroom A, so I'm back out in the heat. There really should be a law against this.

1. (Phone) Staff member wanted to know the interview schedule for today

 I'm still melting.

ITEC Weeding

I finished weeding the ITEC (information technology) section of reference today. Currency is vital to this subject area, so there was a lot of weeding in this section. I also ran across several books that we also had ebook copies, so of course the hard copies of these books were weeded. The oldest books I ran across were from the 1970s. I also discovered that one of the books in my list was not in the reference section.

Here are the stats for the ITEC area of reference. There were 38 titles in this section. Of those 38 titles I sent 18 of them to the main collection. I kept none of these titles in the reference collection, and removed 19 titles from the collection. There was one title in the list that was not in reference, and I could not find it in the catalog at all. 47.4% of the ITEC reference collection was moved to the main collection, 0.0% remains in the reference collection, and 50% was removed from the reference collection. 2.6% of the collection was unaccounted for.

That's 524 books down and 459 to go. I have finished 53.3% of the books I am responsible for. I still believe I'm making good time in my quest to have this finished by the August 1 deadline. I have NURS (nursing) and PHRE (philosophy and religion) left to go. I will be moving to NURS next. The next two sections are much larger than the ITEC section. They take up 46.7% for all the books I am evaluating. I still have a lot of work ahead of me.

Reference Questions, 5/24/2011

I'm still melting.

1. Student was trying to print and the print assist window was not giving him the option to switch to RU Express. He hadn't used his RU Express account in several years so it had become inactive. I told him that he would need to reactivate his account to use it, or he could go to Walker and put money on his actual printing account. 
2. Student wanted to know if there was a way to reactivate his RU Express account online. I was unsure if there was, but I directed him to the RU Express account management page.

The slow summer shifts continue. 

Reference Questions, 5/23/2011

The A/C is STILL not working here in the library. We are beginning our third week without it. I feel like I'm melting.

1. A student brought up a cell phone she found in the bathroom. I took the cell phone to Lost & Found at the Front Desk.
2. A student came looking for her lost cell phone. I sent her to the Front Desk.

I off to teach my first class of the semester. At least it's in Classroom A, the only room with A/C in the whole building.

Reference Questions, 5/20/2011

I'm scheduled for 3 hours today at the desk today. Here's hour #1.

1. Looking for a book, Linear Probability, Logit and Probit Models. Sounds like fun reading.
2. A group of women were on campus for a workshop and they came into the library looking for an art display that they saw last year when they were here. From the description they gave I told them it was on either the 4th or 5th floor. (It's basically a mannequin sitting in a chair, wearing a sweatshirt and pants.) Hope they find it.

Now begin hours 2 and 3. I'm here till closing. The library is pretty empty.

1. (Phone) Had a professor call me and say that she was trying to view an ebook but couldn't because someone else was using it. I explained to her that some of our books could only be view by one person at a time. She insisted that no one else could be viewing this book. She had been viewing it earlier and had only closed the browser and not actually "closed" the book. I told her that might be the problem. Unfortunately our ebook librarian had left for the day, and I could get an immediate fix for the professor. She said she was going to email ebrary and copy our ebook librarian on the email as well. She insisted that we should know what books were being viewed at what time, and when I tried to disagree with her she said that if we were paying for it we should know. Jeez, ever heard of privacy?
2. Looking for a Jewish Prayer Book
3. Looking for an MCAT book
4. Problem patron needed help printing

Well at least I did have a few moments of excitement. You can't beat Fridays at the reference desk for slowness.

Reference Questions, 5/19/2011

It's 8:00 a.m. at the reference desk. There is not a single student in the library right now. Maymester on the march.

1. (Email) Patron needed help renewing some DVDs. I forwarded his question to the Front Desk.
2. Wanted to know the time
3. Printer wasn't printing his print job. His printing account was out of money, and he wasn't waiting on it to finish calculating so he could switch over to his RU Express before he hit accept.

A few did wander in for the 8 o'clock hour, so I did get a couple questions. :)

Reference Questions, 5/18/2011

Maymester continues, and we still have no A/C in the library. I don't know how much more of this I can take. Ugh.

1. Wanted to borrow an ink pen

It's a slow summer, that's for sure.

Reference Questions, 5/17/2011

So begins my 4 hour shift at the reference desk. The A/C is still not working. We have no idea when it will be working. Their answer for that question is really soon. It's hot in here. I can't concentrate when I'm hot, so productivity has gone down considerably since last Monday.

1. Wanted to know which computers he could use for research
2. Needed help printing; couldn't get a document to print from the new CMS Desire 2 Learn
3. Online lecture in D2L didn't want to load; she was in IE, I had her switch to Firefox and it worked
4. Student was looking for records she had saved to her account; come to find out she had marked some books she wanted to check out and had emailed them to herself
5. Student from #4 wanted to know which number in the record she needed to find the book
6. Had a question about posting to a message board in D2L
7. Had shut down her computer and it said it was reconfiguring, she thought she'd done something wrong. I explained to her it was fine.
8. Student was having trouble printing from D2L

Four hours is a long time to be at the reference desk, especially when that desk is slow. I passed the time with some good books.

Reference Questions, 5/16/2011

Summer classes have started. I'm even teaching 2 classes next week. Yay me.

1. Wanted to borrow a highlighter
2. (Chat) Person thought they were chatting with another librarian. they didn't want to speak with me
3. Looking for The Searchers and Stagecoach on DVD. The Searchers was available, but Stagecoach was on reserve. He was not happy about this. He thought he was the only professor who would want that DVD.
4. Wanted to borrow a highlighter

I wasn't expecting the  summer session to be too busy and I wasn't disappointed. So far so good.

DATH Weeding

I finished weeding the dance an theatre section of reference today. Currency isn't as vital to this subject area as it was to the AFBL area, so evaluation was a little easier. This basically just resulted in less weeding. I didn't see anything as old as I ran across while weeding AFBL. I believe the oldest books I ran across were from the 1940s or 1950s.

Here are the stats for the DATH area of reference. There were 297 titles in this section. Of those 297 titles I sent 248 of them to the main collection. I left 14 of the titles in the reference collection, and removed 35 titles from the collection. 83.5% of the DATH reference collection was moved to the main collection, 4.7% remains in the reference collection, and 11.8% was removed from the reference collection.

That's 486 books down and 497 to go. I guess you could say that I've reached the halfway point in this weeding project. I'm making good time in my quest to have this finished by the August 1 deadline. I have ITEC (information technology), NURS (nursing) and PHRE (philosophy and religion) left to go. I will be moving to ITEC next.

Reference Questions, 5/5/2011

Last day of exams, it's almost over.

1. Student was looking for a room that had quotes on the walls. Come to find out she was looking for the alumni garden which is beside the library. We discovered this after she pulled the assignment up.
2. Needed help printing one-sided
3. Needed help printing one-sided

Last shift of the semester finished. Whew.

Reference Questions, 5/4/2011

Exam week continues, as does the instruction librarian interviews. Interview #2 was today and the last one is tomorrow. Today is also so Star Wars Day. My advice during this reference desk shift? "You must unlearn what you have learned."

1. Wanted to know how to print one-sided
2. Looking for ABP
3. Wanted to know if you can print from the computers with scanners
4. Looking for some scrap paper

May the 4th be with you.

Reference Questions, 5/3/2011

Exam week is always slow at the desk. I believe this is true at all universities. I'm not expecting many questions tonight. We found out today that the desk will be closed next week because of the re-carpeting project. Imagine that.

1. Computer was saying that the printer was jammed and it wasn't. I just love these new printers.
2. (Chat) A group on the 4th floor were complaining that another group was being extremely disruptive. I consulted the front desk on this and they sent someone up there to check on it.
3. Computer was saying that the printer was jammed and it wasn't. They are evil.
4. Had worked on a paper all day and thought she'd been saving it to her flash drive and it didn't save. Wanted to know if I could help her find it. I couldn't find it either.

It was as I expected, a slow night. Thursday is the last day of exams.

Reference Questions, 5/2/2011

Today is the first day of exams. Today we are also holding the first of three interviews for the Instruction Librarian position that will be vacant after June. (The former head of the department is retiring.) It will be an exciting day. It'll be nice to be on the other side of an interview, but I'm thinking that reference questions will be on the low end.

It was just as I thought. There was no action here at the reference desk. The calm of exam week is always welcome.