today was a long day. i'm going to be working 10am-6pm fridays at courant library now (it's permanent). the first thing mike wanted me to do was to create a one page instructional sheet on how to use the ScanPro 2000, the new microfilm reader machine. it's really cool and i spent a good hour or so playing with it and wracking my brain for a good way to write up instructions, complete with pictures and diagrams. mike didn't get a chance to look at it until the afternoon. when i came back from lunch, he said he thought it was great and there was only 1 typo (i wrote appear instead of appears). he printed it out and printed the PDF i recommended from the manufacturer's website (since i did refer to it on the instruction sheet). so yay, contribution!
i spent the next hour shelving the books on the cart. it wasn't a lot and i took my time. i really like shelving. it makes me feel like i'm communing with the stacks. ohmmm...
i took over desk from alex for an hour after that. i got a few questions about how to locate books and of course, where is the restroom. a professor from polytechnic tried to check out a book, but he didn't have a patron record and i couldn't locate him by name. now that nyu has merged with poly, they're issuing nyu ID cards to them, but without N numbers or netIDs. we had the send the poor gentleman to bobst library to get it figured out, but they sent him back to call ITS. i went off to lunch before i saw the end of it. hopefully he got it fixed; by the time i came back, the book he wanted was already gone, so i'm assuming all went well.
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i had a quick lunch at the campus eatery while reading my amNY. then i met meg at the 9th fl reference desk. it was the only time she could meet with me because i was now working and she was covering the desk. she got a new gadget (sprint's palm)and was trying to figure out how to charge it. then we caught up on academic stuff and talked about library school classes. she's doing her degree at syracuse and as part of their curriculum, students have to take management courses. palmer does not require those. she's also starting a blog about libraries and ideas and bees. i'm not very good at coming up with puns...
we got some questions at the desk. the first one was from a patron who didn't know how to search for books in the stacks. so meg actually got up and walked her to the areas and helped her find the books. that's definitely something they dont do on the first floor ref desk.
there was another patron who couldnt locate a book that clearly said it was supposed to be on the shelf. first she checked it in bobcat. we hit some snags trying to search by call number because the system is really picky about how you enter it. again, meg went directly to the stacks and tried to find it. it was pure luck that the section we walked into, meg happened to look up and see the book by name. the book had been misshelved so we would not have found it if we looked in the proper place.
another patron came in with a vague question. she had to write a paper for physics about anything (really really broad) and she chose to do a biography. but the prof warned her about just writing a bullet list of what the person did. it needs to have more substance. so meg led her to the ref section that had the biographies and tried to explain different resources she could use. it just seemed the patron wasn't sure of what she wanted yet so meg led her to search some databases for more information.
at this point, i was called to attention by the first patron who obviously thought i worked here as a ref librarian (because i was sitting behind the desk -- i was tired from all the running around in the stacks so when meg was helping the last patron i stayed put). she needed a particular article and couldn't find it electronically through general web searching. so i led her through our databases to see if we own the journal. the searching was amazingly slow. my first try was unsuccessful because i didn't type in the entire name of the journal so it didn't come back with any results. my second try was still running when i decided to try searching for the article directly. we found the article she wanted in pubmed (medline), but it turns out we have a hardcopy in the library that she could borrow so i found the call number of the journal and told her the floor it was located on and wished her luck on finding it (and of course, if you can't find it, to come back and we'll help you).
i was hoping to observe more of meg's interaction with the other patron but she was already wrapping up. so when she came back, i gave her my full report on my transaction at the desk. we're planning to meet for coffee next thursday. at some point, i'm supposed to sit in on one of her library instruction classes and shadow her for two hours. technically, i shadowed her for an hour today, but it definitely was not planned that way. it just so happened that i used my ref skills for one of the transactions. the ref desk is definitely a lot slower up on 9th, but there was a lot personal attention given. meg really followed through with the patron by going with them to the stacks and showing them how it works.
on my way out, i saw the patron i was helping waiting on the check-out line at circulation. makes me happy to know i helped =)
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so back to courant. first thing when i walked in was cris telling me a friend was looking for me. i already guessed it was rae before she started describing her to me. lol. i told her i betcha it was about the crossword puzzle. and sure enough, rae ran over and asked me if i had gotten to it yet. cris laughed. the three of us spent about half an hour then talking about the night scene here in the east village. turns out it's all about karaoke. clubs are more expensive to get into. alex eventually joined our discussion when he walked in and we just got to talking about drunken people singing karaoke. then alex recommended this place. it looks great from its website; i've already emailed some people about it so definitely will be checking this place out.
other than that, i checked books in and checked books out. i managed to tex up all the questions i need to do for my analysis hw so i have that. i secured all the materials i need for a productive weekend. now let's see if i'll actually get any work done... lol.
i spent my train ride home reading the reference guide for medical librarians. it's very helpful in making me aware of my body language more. it's definitely not something i think about often. my sister did comment once that i walked more "aggressively" than a "normal" girl would. i think that comes from living in my neighborhood. no one dares approach me, whereas my sister gets hit on by creepy men.
and this piece of news warms my heart: an elderly gentleman gives money for a new library.
on the side, mom's moved onto a new drama these last few days: D.I.E. Again. ooo, new post for my celebrity interest at the moment...
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