2006
as turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be
maura @ 8:24 pm
Today at my internship I spent some time on the reference desk. I generally enjoy the reference desk — while there are lots of standard directional questions there are also a fair number of interesting inquiries. This morning a student who’s a non-native English speaker asked for help searching the library catalog to research a paper topic. It was such a great interaction, altogether. She asked for help in several bursts and then did some of the research herself (which is so much more satisfying than when they want you to do it all for them). And it was interesting helping to draw out and shape her topic, especially figuring out the best terms to use for the subject searches. The controlled vocabularies ($0.10 for the library science term!) used in library catalogs are often not the way people actually talk and think these days (e.g. cookbooks are given the subject heading “cookery”).
It’s also so interesting to see how the real librarians interact with patrons. Some do the computer work for them, some proffer instructions and the mouse so the patron can do the work. Some go quickly, without narrating their actions, some go slowly and point out each step of the process. Gives me lots to think on re: my own librarian kung fu.
Bah, this all was so much more exciting when it was happening to me. The bloggy mojo just isn’t with me tonight.
