Life is more exciting when you work with other people

This week is my week to work during the day at the library. Hooray for dinner at home! Hooray for going to bed before midnight!

And hooray for interaction with co-workers!

Things I have learned since Monday:

• Mergent Online (business database) is releasing a new version of their database starting in January, with all sorts of cool new features. We had our representative from Mergent come to teach us about the new site, so I also learned more about using Mergent in general and (frequent reference question topic that I had no clue about) that there are two kinds of bonds: corporate and municipal.
• I will be working with 138 first year students who are in a pilot program as a result of the SACS review and our college's new QEP (quality enhancement plan). Basically, the program is exploring ways to help our students become better speakers and writers during their four years here. One way they are doing that is by offering special resources and programs, first to a small group of students and eventually (the italics are important) to all. With the pilot students, they are tying in QEP programs with their English and History required courses this semester, and I am going to get to do three workshops with them over the course of the semester! I'm very excited to work with a group over the whole semester and hopefully get them to become regular library users.
• I'm also going to get to work with a task group for the consortium we are a part of on designing online tutorials that can be used at all consortium schools. (OK, I knew about this last week, but our group had a conference call to get started, so I know a little more about what we'll be doing.)
• Our online catalog is getting a facelift (actually via a project from the consortium) that will make it more user-friendly!

It's kind of amazing what working at the same time as everyone else can teach you.

Predicting busy-ness (extremely boring post!)

There is some pattern about how library use goes. The end of the semester tends to be busier than the beginning; Sunday and Monday nights tend to be busier than Thursdays.

Still, there's no real predicting how busy any given night will be. The Thursday night with all the Public Health students was super busy for me, more so than most Sundays. This week seems to be defying end-of-semester normalcy. Saturday is the last day of classes, yet the library is very quiet tonight, and was last night as well.

I guess most of the major projects have already come due...

Silent screaming

The rest of this post will be in all CAPS. You have been warned.

I DON'T CARE IF YOU TALK ON YOUR CELL PHONE, BUT IT'S POLICY AND I HAVE TO ENFORCE IT, SO PLEASE JUST DO US ALL A FAVOR AND TOE THE LINE.

WHILE YOU'RE AT IT, DON'T INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE BY HIDING YOUR PHONE BEHIND YOUR HAND OR A BOOKSHELF, ESPECIALLY IF YOU TALK AT NORMAL VOLUME.

AND PUSH YOUR CHAIRS IN!!

Ah, I feel better now.

First chat reference session!

This past Tuesday, I had the chance to sub for a shift on our statewide chat reference service. This was my first "live" experience of providing virtual reference. It went quite well.

I manned the computer from 6-8, sitting in my office (a mostly-transparent cubicle adjacent to the reference desk) while our student worker manned the reference desk. She sent reference questions on to me, but this allowed me to pay the most attention to any incoming chats, and to explain to students who came in that I might have to shift gears at a moment's notice.

I had 3 chat questions over the two hour period, which was good for a first shift (not trying to balance several questions at once, for example). They were all fairly simple to answer; the most nerve-wracking part was accessing the patron's home library information (each patron that signs in comes from a particular library's portal--the librarian staffing the service can get information about that library, including how to access the catalog, how to get the patron access to databases, etc.). It went very smoothly, but I was nervous about messing that part up. All 3 patrons were community college students, so their questions were similar to the questions my regular students have (I need articles/books to do a paper on x, I need to cite x source in MLA/APA style).

I was also happy not to have any "emergency" questions. On a fairly regular basis, (public) librarians will get medical or legal questions, to which we can offer sources or referrals, but not advice. Every now and then, one of these questions will be more urgent--I brushed up on some state emergency referral services/hotlines just in case, and was happy not to have to use them!

Overall, it was a good experience, that I hope will help pave the way for offering our own virtual reference. One challenge will really be staffing levels--when there aren't any incoming chat questions, I can help in-person patrons just fine, but once the computer dings, I have to give it all my attention. This means we may often need "double coverage" for the chat reference and the reference desk--maybe a good chance to pull in library students?

Nights that make me love my job

Last Thursday was one of them.

I had about 10 public administration grad students, who all had papers due Friday, in the reference area. Now, it would have been BETTER if they had not waited until Thursday to do their research. But that did not stop me from reveling in finding articles and books for them, helping them use their sources as support for their arguments, and teaching them APA style. And giving them peppermints and encouragement. I was definitely on a high at the end of Thursday evening (but was out of time to blog, and didn't get around to it until now).

Part of what made this experience so satisfying for me was that the students didn't have unrealistic expectations. They KNEW they were late, and they were ready to make due with whatever information we could find in a limited time. They also understood that they were all in the same boat, and were very patient as I went back and forth between them to help.

Hooray for 11th hour reference triumphs! :-)

Library H3lp is back! (maybe)

I scheduled a LibraryH3lp practice Monday, and actually had 3 participants who had not used it before (yea!). It went fairly well--we actually spent most of the time practicing adding buddies and chatting across the librarian interfaces rather than fielding practice questions. However, it was very useful for giving the staff practice to how chatting works.

Unfortunately, we've just had a few major projects come up, and I think virtual reference is going to be placed on a burner that's even further back than the one it was already on. Part of the problem is that it's just hard to coordinate schedules enough (especially among public service people, who are the ones who will be on the front lines chatting!) to get in practice. And it's pretty clear that we all need more chatting practice. The other part is that I'm just not sure how many people are really interested in offering the service, at least to the point of helping to make it happen. Our best bet may be taking a staged approach--offering a couple hours a week of the service until it catches on.

An additional update is that the coordinator of the state virtual reference program has created LibraryH3lp accounts for us so that it will be easier for us to integrate with the program when and if we are ready. This is great both for that reason and because it gives me an automatic back-up person who I can call for help.

I'm trying to keep this more on my personal front burner than I have before (another reason why it's so far back!), and I will try to continue to update!

Student workers

I've personally experienced 4 student workers at this point in my academic library career. There are several more who have worked when I work, but if they are stationed downstairs, I don't get to know them as well.

It's kind of rough for the students, because they are stuck in a fairly quiet--as in less frequented--part of the library (serials), often without any particular assignment except to be present at the desk. I think this led to some students being unreliable in showing up to work on a regular basis, which created trouble for them both in terms of how much they were paid and in being re-hired.

We have more work assignments for our evening students this semester, but not enough to fill a four hour shift. Over the past week, I had a student filling out book order cards, which is tedious, but still doesn't last very long (I think she spent 3-4 hours total to go through a whole review journals worth of orders). I think if we had a more standardized, comprehensive training program for students, we could assign more work to them (which would be great considering how short staffed we are!). As it is, we train them as we have assignments for them, but it seems that finding work for the students almost creates more work.

Ideas for student worker projects? Did any of you spend work-study or just plain student employment time at a library desk?