Incoherent Scribblings

Solving the Puzzle

What does it mean to be a reference librarian? When someone asks you a question, what do you do?

Do you find information for that patron? Do you suggest a few select books from the catalog or point out articles that seem to be on topic? Even as you perform such a consultation do you act as a readers’ advisory?

Or do you instruct the patron on how to find the information for him or herself? Do you explain the theory behind searching and do example searches? Do you teach the mechanics of manipulating data?

Do you do both? If you do both, why? Why do you simply find information for one patron, but chose to instruct the other one?

The library instruction librarian in me wants to teach everyone that comes into the library how to find information for him or herself. She wants every boy and girl that enters the library to know how to tell a good source from a bad one. She wants them to know how to use the good source when they find it and do so responsibly. She wants them to be independent researchers and find it rewarding.

Many requests are relatively straight-forward and, if properly educated, the patron can easily find the information for him or herself. Therefore, a little instruction can go a long way in answering the question.

But when that gem of a question, that rare nugget of authentic reference work is presented, the rouge reference librarian in me emerges and suppresses that naive instruction librarian. The reference librarian wants the thrill of finding the answer all to herself. She doesn’t care if all the good boys and girls learn how to find the answer or not.

It isn’t about guarding the secrets of the library or being lazy. It isn’t about purposely finding the information so the patron doesn’t have to or influencing the information the patron receives.

It’s all about solving the puzzle.

Only Tuesday

One of my responsibilities as Education Coordination Librarian at West Texas Town University is to organize and schedule our Library Instruction* program.

I am not saying that I haven’t had anything to do in that capacity since I started my position in September, but since the semester was already in full swing when I arrived the actual organizing and scheduling I did for fall was minimal. The majority of the classes had already been scheduled and most had already been taught.

Since the fall semester ended, however, I have been spending a lot of time completing various tasks in preparation to “officially” take control of my program. I have compiled a mountain of statistics. (I am still not sure what I am going to do with them, but at least I have them!) I have read about assessment. I have created forms and documented procedure. I have done at least a dozen other things too, but I will stop there… You get the idea.

Luckily though, just as I was beginning to get rather bored with all the “busy” work, the spring semester arrived. Classes don’t officially start until tomorrow, but I wanted to start the semester off right by getting the word out that there is a new education coordination librarian in town.

I went to the beginning of semester faculty/administrative staff meeting and took a couple of minutes to introduce myself. I schmoozed networked after the meeting over coffee Coke and donuts. I passed out my business card. I sent a follow-up email.

Before I even went to lunch I began getting requests and taking reservations. In fact, the response has been such that when I left my office tonight I still had reservation forms on my desk to double check against my calendar… and it’s only Tuesday!

* Insert the buzzword of choice here: library instruction, bibliographic instruction, user education, or information literacy to name a few.

Strange Library Patrons 101

Every library that I have ever worked in has had its share of unusual patrons. Some are annoying, others are weird but harmless, and some are just plain creepy.

West Texas Town University Library is no exception to this rule and after I learned the layout of the reference section and how we keep stats here, one of the first things I learned working at the reference desk was who these patrons are.

Overall, most patrons at the library are our students or are in some way connected to the university. However, since we are a public university we have a fair amount of public patrons who frequent the library as well. And while some of the people who are connected to the university are no less creepy than the ones who aren’t, the odd public patrons are some of the most easily spotted.

For example, there is the lady who wears too much blush and insists upon asking me every single time that I see her if I am really a librarian. She then proceeds to tell me that she moved to West Texas Town from California and wants to know where I am from, because she can just tell that I am not from Texas. She is a little on the loud side and can be annoying, but from what I understand is harmless as long as she takes her meds.

Then there is the man who spends all day in the library with his clip-on sunglasses flipped up and waits until we are almost ready to turn the photocopiers off for the day before he begins to make his copies. Apparently he has been a student at various points in the past and has studied everything from art to astronomy. He will stay in the library until the very last announcement and the lights are being flipped off before he grudgingly leaves for the night. He is a little weird and I have been told has been known to make people uncomfortable, but I have talked to him on occasion and I believe him to be one of the weird but harmless types.

And then there is Guitar Man. Guitar Man claims to be a musician and spends most of the day struggling with Microsoft Word in the futile attempt to create a song list. He plays guitar at the local bars and is one of those patrons who every time you help him you must demonstrate the magic of the double-click. He compliments me on my fluency with Word each time that I fix the mistakes he makes and in return has offered me free guitar lessons for life.

He lightly touched my shoulder once and though I thought it a bit creepy, he has never done anything that I considered overtly inappropriate… until today. Today in what I can only assume was over-enthusiasm for the magic that out student worker performed in rescuing his Word document from the black-hole of cyberspace, he kissed her on the cheek! She reported him and he has been given a warning and put on our “watch list,” but I have to say I was a little surprised she didn’t slap him for his actions.

Because if he ever invades my personal space again I just might…

Rostig

That is the German word for “rusty.” Now, I will admit that I don’t remember if one uses the concept of being rusty at something to describe being out of practice, but in keeping with the spirit of Denglish, today I am going to.

* * * * *

Today, while working at the Information Desk, I had a lady come in to register for a community borrower card. Because I am still learning all the nuances of the different services we provide at the Information Desk, at this point I had to bring another librarian in to refresh my memory as to the next steps in the community borrower registration process.

When we first spoke at the desk, I thought I had detected a German accent in the prospective community borrower’s English and as we began filling out all the necessary paperwork, it came to my attention that she had a very “German” name.

However, it wasn’t until she was looking over her registration information and mentioned that our computer had not put an umlaut over the “a” in her last name that I took the plunge.

“Sprechen Sie Deutch?” I inquired.

Why, yes, as a matter of fact she did, she replied in German. She then asked me if I was German. In German, I replied that no I wasn’t, but I had lived in Germany for four and a half years. (Seriously, it’s the blonde hair, it gets them every time!)

At this point she had been entered into our system so we collected her annual fee and then briefed her on our community borrower policies and did a little demo of the online catalog. As this was the first time I had been involved in registering a community borrower, I mainly observed as my colleague instructed her on the catalog and how to renew books online. Near the end of the demonstration, the phone rang so I left the scene.

She spent a few minutes browsing the catalog but before she left, she came back over to the desk and started chatting away with me in German.

I was very excited to be speaking German again but was also nervous and as a result, I was embarrassed at the rustiness of my conversation.

Although I understood and responded correctly to the questions about how long I had been living in and what brought me to West Texas Town, I completely misunderstood the question she asked about whether I had come directly from Munich. I stumbled over my past tense helping verbs (haben vs. sein) and was surprised she understood anything I said as the order of the words in my sentences were enough to make me cringe as they tumbled from my mouth.

I apologized profusely for my German, but told her that it was because I hadn’t been practicing. Minutes later as we parted proper in German fashion, I couldn’t help but hope that I had made a contact that would help me fulfill #48 on my 101 Things list: Continue practicing my German in the US.

Friday on a Thursday

Ta da! Here is my Friday Cactus complete on a Thursday! (Actually I finished it on Tuesday night and photographed it Wednesday, but that is neither here nor there.) It was really fun to stitch this and was a great way to get back into the stitchy swing of things.

After almost two weeks, I suppose I finally have a few minutes to do a quick recap of everything that has been going on in my life… Besides, I think I am about as settled in as I can get without furniture.

The drive southwest was a long one. The tripometer on my car had almost reached 1100 miles (that’s over 1700 kilometers) when I pulled into West Texas Town 19 hours after I left my driveway in Small Town, Iowa. My mom and stepdad came along with me in my aunt’s van and it was stuffed to the gills with my things. Even so, I still had to leave quite a few things (mainly furniture) behind that I had originally planned on taking because my little car was full of cats! (Remember how I said that I only taking four cats? Well, I couldn’t bear to separate the kittens and, long story short, now– including me– we are six.)

I started my new job last Monday and everything at work since then has been sort of a blur. I began by attempting to clear my new office of my predecessor’s left-overs, but since there may be some valuable job-related materials amongst all the junk I have been painstakingly going through everything. In addition, I have been brainstorming with my new boss about things I want to accomplish in my position. Though I go to bed each night exhausted, I am so loving it!

My apartment is small, but it is a very funky part of town and it is quite convenient to the university. I have not yet met my landlord, nor have I paid a dime in rent or signed a lease. I was quite alarmed at this the first few days that I was here, but then I was told not to worry. Things here in West Texas Town get done, but apparently no one is in too big of a hurry to do them.

As a result, I am waiting (rather impatiently) to get my telecommunications center (phone/DSL/cell) set up. It was supposed to be done on Wednesday, but as you may have guessed that didn’t happen and I am still waiting.

However, I fear that the problem may not necessarily be the phone company’s fault. (GASP!) I do not live in an apartment complex. Rather, I am one of three apartments in a tiny building in an alleyway. As I have not yet met my landlord, I didn’t even know my physical address until I asked the mailman. After that I decided to get a PO Box, but the phone company and the UPS man still need to know where I am physically located nevertheless.

In amongst all of this chaos, Harley managed to fall ill again. This time she has a problem with her eye. Originally we thought she may have torn her 3rd eyelid, but when it didn’t heal we began looking at the possibility of infection. Unfortunately, she has not responded very well to the antibiotics thus far. Yesterday we put her on something stronger and took some blood. As I am prone to do with my kitties, I fear the worse: A diagnosis of cancer.

Mouse will be visiting our new vet (we’ll call her Dr. M) tomorrow because it is time to refill her thyroid medicine prescription. Luckily, (mostly for Dr. M who has not yet met Mouse) she doesn’t need her blood drawn until February so Dr. M is just going to have a quick look at her and refill the meds.

I still want to fill my readers in on some of the fun and interesting experiences I have had over the past two weeks learning about life in West Texas and it will come… eventually.

I promise.