Danielle Deaver
Info 521
IPL Project Log
Aug. 23, 2010
Question One
Question: I need to explain the importance and information value of illustrative
records, books and serials in a public library. Please can you help me? I will give
your details as a reference in my assignment. Thanks
name:
location: South Africa
area: Library
reason: in my assignment
school: Yes
sources_consulted: The Internet in general, my text book: Bibliographic Control in
Information Sources and my study guide
Answer:
Greetings from the ipl2!
I received your question about the importance and information value of illustrative
books, serials and records in public libraries. I was pleased to look for an answer to
such an interesting question.
I found that most sites consider “illustrative” to be a synonym for “illustrated” when
used in reference to books and other printed materials. I found several articles and
websites that discuss how important illustrated works are to a library.
The Smithsonian Institute has an online presentation about the importance of book
illustrations, called “Picturing Words: The Power of Book Illustration.” The website
can be found here:
http://www.sil.si.edu/exhibitions/picturingwords/
I also found an article about graphic books at this website:
www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklinks/resources/0
508_Links_ItsElementary.pdf
That link is long and could break, so here is a shorter link:
http://tinyurl.com/27josbf
I found information about illustrated records, and particularly the importance of
preserving them, at this website:
http://cool.conservation-us.org/byauth/ogden/origform.html
I found these websites by first searching Google.com for the words “illustrative AND
books AND public library.”
I found that most websites were referring to “illustrative” as “illustrated” so I tried
that combination in google.com and found the first website.
To find the second website, I searched the American Library Association website for
the words “Illustrated books” I chose that website because I know that the ALA is
the largest library association in the country, and hoped that it might have some
information about illustrated works in libraries.
To find the third website, I searched google.com for preservation illustrated books,
and found the report. I chose those keywords because I had noticed that a lot of the
library articles related to which items in libraries are worth preserving as libraries
transition to digital format. This article points out the importance of illustrated
books, articles and other records.
I hope this response has answered your question. If you need any more help, please
come back. Thanks for visiting the ipl2!
Method/Analysis
I spent about four hours on this question. I consulted many sources, mostly trying to
figure out if I was missing something because I could not find the term “illustrative”
in the proper context for the question in any search engines or databases.
I started with the Google search engine, using the keywords “importance of
illustrative books AND library.” That did not return anything relevant. I substituted
“records” then “works” for the word “books” but those words did not return the
types of articles I had been hoping to find. I then switched to yippy.com (formerly
clusty.com) and tried the same series of keywords. I still did not find anything that
would help the patron.
I tried switching to “illustrated books AND importance AND library” and did get
some hits, but I was concerned that they would not be relevant. The word
“illustrative” in the question was giving me some problems. In the patron
information it said that the person was writing from South Africa. I was pretty sure
that she wanted articles about the value of “illustrated” books, but I was a little
concerned that she could have meant instructive. Finally I decided to go with
illustrated.
After finding the Smithsonian website, I decided to focus my search more and went
to the IPL. I tried the general search on IPL, then looked through the resources by
subject for library resources. I found the Library Resource Center and used the same
variety of keywords (illustrated AND books AND importance AND library) and
added and subtracted a few terms after the full search term did not work. I did not
find anything useful.
I decided to look in the American Library Association website. I searched for
“illustrated books” and did find something relevant.
I wanted to find one more thing, so I continued my search. I went to some of the
deep web search engines again and tried Intute.come. I tried the terms “illustrative
AND importance AND books,” and “illustrated AND importance AND books” and
“illustrated AND collection policy AND libraries.” I went to the Library of Congress
website and did a general search for the same terms, then searched for “collection
policy AND illus*” but I was unsuccessful.
An article I saw on that website gave me the idea of looking for articles about the
importance of preserving illustrated works. I tried that and found the third article
that I included in my answer.
Overall I was not very happy with the answer that I sent to the patron. While I was
able to find some articles about the importance or prevalence of illustrated books, I
did not find anything that connected that back to libraries. I also was never
completely satisfied that I should have made the jump from “illustrative” to
illustrated.
In retrospect, I should have emailed the patron and asked her to clarify the question
and her use of the word illustrative. I also should have tried Google scholar or
another site that would have offered access to academic papers. And I should have
tried harder to find another article or website that talked about preservation policy
or collection policy as they applied to illustrated books.
Question Two:
Question: HOW CAN I GET A COPY OR LOOK AT OLD NEWSPAPERS.
name:
location: LAFAYETTE,LA / USA
area: Other
reason: WORK PURPOSES
school: No
sources_consulted: ABBEVLLE,LA DAILY ADVISTER LINK NEWSPAPER PAPER LINK
Answer:
Greetings from the ipl2! I understand from the question that you sent that you are
interested in looking at or purchasing old newspapers. I was pleased to look for an
answer to such an interesting question. There are several resources that offer
access to old newspapers. The easiest way is often to call or email the newspaper
that you are interested in purchasing or looking at to see if they can offer you access.
Your local library might also be able to offer access to archived copies.
There are also websites that might be helpful. One of those is
http://www.trussel.com/books/magdeal.htm#backissuescom
Because that link is long and might break, here is a shorter one:
http://tinyurl.com/2eh37q5
The website offers a compilation of websites that specialize in selling various back
issues of newspapers.
The Library of Congress also has a website that shows images of old newspapers
from across the country. You can find it at this website:
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
You can search by location and date for the one you want.
The New York Times also sells copies of its back issues, including complications of
issues from through a year or front pages from some issues. You can find
information at this site:
http://www.nytstore.com/ProdInterCode.aspx?prodcode=923&intercode=954
That link is long and could break, so here is a shortened one:
http://tinyurl.com/2a9xahq
I began the search by going to
http://www.google.com
and typing “purchase back issues newspaper”. I scrolled down until I found the first
website.
I then went back to
http://www.google.com
and typed “purchasing or looking at back issues of newspapers”. I found the website
http://www.ehow.com/how_5890673_back-issues-newspapers.html
Here is a shortened link:
http://tinyurl.com/297ysn4
That website mentioned that the Library of Congress offers archived newspapers on
its website. I went to the Library of Congress,
http://www.loc.gov
clicked on “Digital Collections” and then “Historic Newspapers.” The website
mentioned above appeared.
I looked at the New York Times at
http://www.nytimes.com
I used this site because it is the nation’s newspaper of record and many people refer
to it when needing information about national news. I also knew from my own
experience that it sells back issues. I found the link for the store on the left side of
the page and clicked on it; information about buying back issues came up.
I hope this response has answered your question. If you need any more help, please
come back. Thanks for visiting the ipl2!
Method/Analysis
This question took me about 30 minutes to answer. I started with a simple Google
search, with the keywords “purchase back issues newspapers.” The first website I
mentioned in my answer came up. Scrolling farther down the page, I saw the ehow
page about how to look at or buy old newspapers. I read that page and saw that it
mentioned a project at the Library of Congress. I visited that site and thought that it
would be a good thing to add to the answer; I added it, along with instructions about
how to find the correct collection.
After that, I tried the Newseum website. This is a museum in Washington, D.C. that
documents that history of news. They do not have any resources through which to
access old newspapers, however. I then went to the New York Times, because that is
the national paper of record and included information about how to access those
back issues.
I also checked the Abbeville, La. Daily Advertiser, but could not find any information
on the paper’s website about how to purchase back issues.
I was fairly pleased with this answer. I went back through the training offered by the
IPL before I wrote this answer because I was not happy with the way my first
answer turned out. This review, along with a note from an IPL librarian reminding
me of the proper procedure for writing websites in an answer, helped me to
improve my second answer. This was also a topic I am very familiar with, so it was
easy to think of the correct terminology, and to remind the patron that her local
library or local newspaper might be a good source of back issues.
Question Three
Question: What role do schools has today in teens social culture? What are the
difficulties (values, ethics, peer pressure, ads, movies, etc.) which teens have to face
today?
name:
location: Guatemala
area: Education reason: academic research for my school degree. The information
can be useful to define my investigation in today's teens social culture.
school: Yes
Answer:
Greetings from the ipl2!
I understand from your question that you are interested in learning more about the
difficulties that teenagers face in today’s society, and what role schools play in
forming teen culture. I was pleased to look for an answer to such an interesting
question.
There are many websites and articles that address different aspects of the
teenager’s difficulties in today’s culture.
This website has an article about peer pressure and teens:
http://www.webmd.com/parenting/teen-abuse-cough-medicine-9/peer-pressure
This link is long and could break, so here is a shorter one:
http://tinyurl.com/yz28wm2
The next article, from a reputable government source, addresses several aspects of
teen culture, including peer pressure, drugs and bullying, among other topics. You
can read the articles by clicking on the link:
http://family.samhsa.gov/teach/
This website addresses the issues that teens face in relation to the media:
http://depts.washington.edu/thmedia/
This website offers information about teens some of the more serious issues they
face. You can find the relevant links at the bottom of the page; the site is also fully
searchable.
http://www.aacap.org/cs/forFamilies
I found these websites using various search methods. I found the first website by
going to:
http://www.bing.com
and typing the keywords peer pressure AND teens. I scrolled down until I found an
article that was relevant and from a reputable source.
I found the next website by going to the search engine:
http://www.dogpile.com
I typed the keywords: role of schools in teen culture. I scrolled down the page until I
found a website from a reputable source. The one I found was about body piercing
and teens, but a bar on the left side of the page offers other options, including the
one I chose, “Teach your kids to choose friends wisely.”
For the third website, I went to the Internet Public Library, at
http://www.ipl.org/
and typed in “teen culture.” You can also do a more specific search by choosing from
the numerous resources listed on the webpage. I selected the website at
Washington.edu because it is affiliated with a well-known university.
For the fourth website, I went to the American Academy of Children and Adolescent
Psychiatry website. This is a well-known group with a good reputation. Their
website can be found at:
http://www.aacap.org/
I clicked on the link “For Families” at the top. That took me to a page full of articles,
many of which I hope will be relevant to your work.
I hope this response has answered your question. If you need any more help, please
come back. Thanks for visiting the ipl2!
Method/Analysis:
This question took about two hours to answer, mostly because of the abundance of
material. A lot of people have written about teenage culture, teenage problems and
related issues. I started by using google.com and searching for teen culture. I found
the website from drugfree.org. I looked around that site quite a bit, trying to find the
sources of information and to make sure that the group was neutral and reliable. I
then went to the IPL and to resources by subject. I tried socials sciences first, and
used the same rather vague keywords, “teen culture” and found the site from
Washington.edu, but nothing else seemed unique enough to be useful. I then
wondered if I might have more luck with psychology, but I had the opposite problem
there; most of the articles were too narrowly focused.
I then tried clusty.com to find something about the roles of schools in teen culture. I
had thought this would be an easy part of the question, but it turned out to be the
most difficult. I did not find any articles, so I turned to Google Scholar, but I did not
find anything relevant. When I went back to Google, I found a few things but nothing
that linked up to the role of schools in teen culture, which to me was a very specific
topic and one that I had expected to find had generated a lot of research.
I then went to bing.com and searched for peer pressure AND teens. That led to the
first link I included in my answer, for a webmd article. I decided to have another try
at the question about schools’ influence on teen culture, and went to dogpile.com
and tried variations on the keywords schools, youth, teens, culture, influence. Then I
tried the full question, “role of schools in teen culture”. The only thing I came up
with was the link to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, which I included in my answer. That link also led me to the main
page of the site, which I followed to healthychildren.org. That led to the American
Academy of Children and Adolescent Psychiatry, which I realized had useful
information. I included that in my answer in case the patron wanted some
information about the more serious problems that can affect teens.
The search was a little difficult because of the quantity of material of various depths
that was available. There was some academic research, but most of it was advice
about teens for parents, or advice about teens for teens. Since the patron had said
she was doing research for her school degree, I decided to include information at
various levels. Looking back on it, I wish I had included some more of the academic
research that I found.
Question Four
Question: I'm study Librarian science in Chaing Mai University. I want to know
about information common . Because ; My thesis. I want to offer information
common. but in University in thailand. not have data , information , thesis , journal
about information common. i hope ipl have the answer to me. thank you. Sorry for
my english language badly.
name:
location: Thailand
grade: bachelor's degree
area: Library
school: Yes
sourceschecked: website library
Answer:
Greetings from the ipl2!
I understand from your question that you are interested in learning more about
information commons. It was a pleasure to research such an interesting topic.
There are many websites and articles that address the topic of information
commons.
The Free Expression Project group has done many reports about information
commons. One report can be found by going to this website:
http://fepproject.org/policyreports/infocommons.preview.html
That link is long and might break, so here is a shorter one:
http://tinyurl.com/2cokdzh
Once you go to the website, you can scroll to the bottom of the page to find a link to
a full report the group did about Information Commons.
The nonprofit association EDUCAUSE has also studied information commons a great
deal. One of the papers seemed especially relevant to your search:
http://www.educause.edu/learningspacesch7
That link is quite long and may break, so here is a shorter one:
http://tinyurl.com/c7zj4r
The American Library Association has also done a lot of research about information
commons. One of their discussion papers can be found at this website:
www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oitp/publications/booksstudies/i
c%20principles%20docume.pdf
That link is quite long and could break, so here is a shorter one:
http://tinyurl.com/2cnszk3
I started the search for answers to your question by going to the search engine
Google.
http://www.google.com
I searched for the term “information commons” and found links to the first website
mentioned above. The link to the Free Expression Project Group’s report was the
third site that Google found. The Free Expression Project Group is a reputable group
that has done research on many topics relevant to information commons. I found
the EDUCAUSE report by searching Google for “information commons AND library”.
http://www.google.com
The report was the fourth item cited on the page. It seemed relevant to your search,
and is published by a reputable group.
I found the American Library Association report by going to the group’s website:
http://www.ala.org
and searching for “information commons.” The report was the fifth thing mentioned
in the search results. I chose the ALA website because I know that the association is
well-respected and has studied how information is used and shared.
I hope this response has answered your question. If you need any more help, please
come back. Thanks for visiting the ipl2!
Method/Analysis
This answer took me about 90 minutes to complete. It was one of the most fun for
me to research and answer because it was about a topic that I had vaguely heard of
but knew little about – just enough to be interested in learning more. Also, I found
several relevant articles pretty easily and enjoyed reading them myself.
I first used Google to search for the keywords “information commons.” It led me to a
Wikipedia article. I read that for background knowledge and followed the links
listed at the bottom. One of the links led to the paper by the Free Expression Project
group. I looked over the paper and researched the group a bit by going to the About
Us section. I was a little concerned that its affiliation with New York University had
ended in 2007, but its board of directors had some very reputable people on it, so I
decided to use the source in my answer.
I then used Google to search for information commons AND library. I found another
paper, by the group Educause, and decided to use that. I then went to Google Scholar
and dogpile.com. Both had several academic articles that looked very relevant, but
all required payment. I was hesitant to recommend anything that would require
someone to pay for access when they were free resources available.
I went to the Internet Public Library and went to the reference section, then to Deep
Blu at the University of Michigan. I searched for information AND commons AND
library, but found nothing of interest. I went to the Library of Congress website and
searched for the same thing, but found nothing, to my surprise. I went to the
American Library Association and found a relevant link, which I included in the
answer.
In retrospect, I should also have included the citations for the articles that I found in
Google Scholar and dogpile.com and suggested that the patron take them to his
university library and ask for help in finding them. I thought about that after I had
sent off the answer, and then did so with a later question. Otherwise, I think I
offered a broad scope of materials for the patron to use in starting his research.
Question Five
Question: I'm trying to locate good sources --- esp. articles & books --- about the
history of immigration in Chicago.
Location: Chicago, IL USA
area: History
reason: Give info to a friend.
school: No
sources_consulted: None yet.
Answer:
Greetings from the ipl2! I understand from your question that you are interested in
finding some books and articles about the history of immigration in Chicago. It was
fun to research such an interesting topic!
The first site that I found is the Encyclopedia of Chicago, which is a project done by
the Chicago Historical Society. The article that relates to immigration can be found
here:
http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/962.html
The Chicago Public Radio also did an interactive web feature about immigration in
Chicago. You can find it here:
http://www.wbez.org/cm_timeline.html
The Public Broadcasting Service also did a program that related to immigration in
Chicago, and put some of its background information on its website:
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2006/10/chicago_littlelinks.html
That link is quite long and could break, so here is a shorter one:
http://tinyurl.com/32zolxm
I did not find any books that related specifically to the history of immigration in
Chicago, but this book does contain some information about it:
Bodnar, J. E. (1985). The transplanted: A history of immigrants in urban America.
Interdisciplinary studies in history. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
You can find it in a library near you by going to:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/transplanted-a-history-of-immigrants-in-urbanamerica/oclc/11157613&referer=brief_results
That link is long and could break, so here is a shorter one:
http://tinyurl.com/38ktru5
I started this search by going to Google and typing in the keywords “history of
immigration in Chicago.
http://www.google.com
The results page led me to the Encyclopedia of Chicago, the PBS article and the
Public Radio article. There were many articles that related to specific industries,
ethnic groups or periods of time and immigration in Chicago, but those seemed
more specific than you wanted. I went to Google scholar and typed the same
keywords.
http://www.scholar.google.com
That led me to the book by J.E. Bodnar. I found the library citation by going to
http://www.worldcat.org.
I hope this response has answered your question. If you need any more help, please
come back. Thanks for visiting the ipl2!
Method/Analysis
Answering this question took me about 90 minutes. I started at Google Scholar,
because he had mentioned he wanted articles and books. Most of the articles and
books in the Scholar website were too specific; they were about specific immigrant
groups or specific time periods or industries. I switched to Google and used the
same keywords: immigration history of Chicago. I found a few sites and marked
them down. I then tried a variety of deep web search engines, including:
http://www.dogpile.com
http://www.yippy.com
http://www.ask.com
It surprised me that I could not find more general articles about the history of
immigration in Chicago, especially since immigration is such a big topic right now. I
also searched in Amazon and the Library of Congress, but most of the results were
either too general (history of immigration in general) or too specific, as I had found
earlier when using Google Scholar. I went to the IPL and to the Resources – By
Subject; History; Social Sciences, but again the results were too general. In the end I
simply used the results I had found with Google, sorting through them to make sure
that they were all fairly general and related back to the question in the format the
patron had requested.
I thought that this answer was adequate. It is hard to judge the results of these
answers, because I always feel like there is one more site or keyword combination
out there that will yield the perfect article or book. I think I provided some
resources that will get the patron started.
Question Six
Question: Do you have a large selection of books with large print on line? Are they
down loadable so I can increase the size as needed?
name: location: Indian Trail, NC USA
area: Literature
reason: To help a student with a visual impairment
school: Yes
sources_consulted: Public Libraries
Answer:
Greetings from the ipl2! I understand from your question that you are looking for
online books with large print and adjustable sizes, and that you are looking for this
information so you can help a visually impaired student. Thank you for asking me to
research such an interesting question!
Unfortunately, the IPL does not have a large selection of online books. But there are
a few websites that do offer a selection of online books, and some that offer options
for visually impaired readers.
This website allows you to alter the text size of a large selection of ebooks. The
service is free, and can be customized for your particular need.
http://www.readeasily.com/
I found another website that offers access to ebooks for people who have a visual
impairment. This service is not free for most people, but it is free for students who
have a qualifying disability.
http://www.bookshare.org/
There is also a website that offers access to a large library of free ebooks. This is not
specifically a large-print library, but by adjusting the text size on your screen, you
can adjust the size of the words. This is not a service made for visually impaired
people but this might provide an option.
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
I started this search by going to Google and entering the keywords “ebooks visually
impaired.”
http://www.google.com
That led me to the first two sites. Then, I went to the Internet Public Library.
http://www.ipl.org/
I clicked on the “Resources by Subject” and the went to the “Arts and Humanities”
area, and clicked on “Libraries.” I scrolled through the libraries listed until I came to
the website for Project Gutenberg.
I hope this response has answered your question. If you need any more help, please
come back. Thanks for visiting the ipl2!
Method/Analysis
This question took about an hour to answer. I started this search assuming it would
be easy to find e-books that were made for people with visual impairments. As it
turned it, it was pretty easy as long as you actually used the phrase “ebooks visually
impaired”. I started out by searching for “ebooks large print” which yielded nothing.
Once I switched to the more precise search phrase, I found two websites through
Google. I went to the Library of Congress website to see if they offered anything for
the visually impaired, but they do not. I realized the patron had included a location
in her question, so I searched for the North Carolina public schools, but they did not
have any ebooks for visually impaired readers. I then went to the North Carolina
public libraries website, but since the libraries are controlled by individual counties,
I had to change my search to find the correct county library. Unfortunately, Wake
County libraries do not offer ebooks for school-aged readers. The state also has a
library for the blind and visually impaired, but nothing that they offered was
available on-line. I went to the IPL to explore the book options there, and found
Project Gutenberg. I had used the site before myself, but once I saw it in the IPL, it
occurred to me that the website might also be useful to someone who was visually
impaired, as long as it responded to changes in the computer text types. It did, so I
suggested that to the patron.
I was pleased with this answer. I felt that I offered several options for the teacher
and her student, and had looked for some convenient local options, which
unfortunately did not work out. Hopefully she was able to use one of the available
resources to help her student.
Question Seven
Question: what are the advantages and disadvantages of using biological control
methods to eradicate ragworts?.
name:
location: Auckland, New Zealand
area: Other
reason: For Biocontrol report writing
school: Yes
sources_consulted: http://www.doc.govt.nz/upload/documents/science-andtechnical/ir06.pdf
Answer:
Greetings from the ipl2! I understand from your question that you are looking for
information about the advantages and disadvantages of using biological control
methods to eradicate ragworts. Thank you for sending in such an interesting
question!
I found several websites and articles that address your question. The first is an
article called “The West Coast Ragwort Control Trust: The biological control of
ragwort.” It gives a good overview of the subject. It can be found at:
http://www.maf.govt.nz/sff/about-projects/search/02-146/biological-control-ofragwort.htm
That link is quite long and could break, so here is a shorter one:
http://tinyurl.com/298x2y4
I also found an article that might help you through Google Scholar.
http://scholar.google.com/
Because Google Scholar seamlessly retrieves materials for users authorized to
access subscription database resources, you might not have access to these
resources directly from your own personal computer. I have provided the citations
for the resource you need and outlined the steps taken in Google Scholar to show
you how I retrieved this article. If you are unable to reach them on your own
computer, please take the citation to the nearest library for assistance. Some
publishers also allow you to purchase individual articles. Many of them include a
link for purchase alongside the abstract. Here is the direct link to the abstract:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1442-9993.2000.tb00060.x/abstract
That link is quite long and could break, so here is a shorter one:
http://tinyurl.com/28o9546
Here is a citation for the article. Many times a local library may have the journal.
FOWLER, S. V., SYRETT, P. and HILL, R. L. (2000), Success and safety in the biological
control of environmental weeds in New Zealand. Austral Ecology, 25: 553–562. doi:
10.1111/j.1442-9993.2000.tb00060.x
This article is about biological control of ragwort in Australia. This link will take you
directly to the PDF of the report:
http://www.invasive.org/publications/xsymposium/proceed/01pg67.pdf
That link is quite long and could break, so here is a shorter one:
http://tinyurl.com/29x7j9c
I started my search by going to Google and searching for the keywords “ragwort
AND biological control AND advantage. I found the first link through that search.
http://www.google.com
I then went back to Google and changed my keywords to “ragwort AND biological
control AND disadvantage” and found the third article. I also searched Google
Scholar for more academic works; as I mentioned above, that is how I found the
second article. I used the same keywords – “ragwort AND biological control AND
advantage” in that search.
http://scholar.google.com/
I hope this response has answered your question. Good luck with your report! If you
need any more help, please come back. Thanks for visiting the ipl2!
Method/Analysis
It took me about 90 minutes to answer this question. I started out by using Google to
look for ragwort AND biological controls AND advantage. I found one article, which I
used in the answer. Then I tried again, substituting “disadvantage” for “advantage.” I
found another article that I thought would help the patron and included that in my
answer.
For the second website that I included in the answer, I used Google Scholar. I found
the second link and the citation using that website.
I also tried using the IPL. I went to Resources, then Science and selected the
database concerned with environmental issues, but I could not find any relevant
articles.
I thought this answer would be helpful to the patron because it included a good mix
of resources – academic and general, and ones that discussed the advantages and
disadvantages of biological control.
Reaction
This experience has made me more aware of the conveniences and the drawbacks of
email reference services. The convenience is hard to debate – a patron can send in a
question from anywhere in the world, receive at least a starting point for places to
look for more information. But there are serious drawbacks. It is very difficult to
understand what the patron needs through a simple email request. This experience
made me appreciate, more than ever, the importance of a good reference interview.
It was really hard to discern exactly what the patron wanted based on a few words.
While the general question came through, it was difficult to know what type of
information the patron wanted – academic or general, both sides of the issue or just
one.
A live encounter, or one conducted over a chat service, would have made this aspect
of the experience easier. Good reference interviews include brief questions, slipped
in discreetly, that guide a librarian through the patron’s true needs, sometimes
without the patron really being aware of it. Email services such as those offered by
the IPL do not offer the same opportunity to ask brief, simple questions.
But live encounters and those over chat services have a drawback that gives email
an enormous advantage: people are right there, waiting on the other side of the desk
or computer, for an answer. The email services do give librarians time to sit back
and consider the question that they have to answer, and the opportunity to try
different solutions with the luxury of time. That makes it relatively easy to try longshot veins of inquiry that might not pay off, or to try new methods of searching.
I think email will have an important place in the future of library services. It’s very
convenient for patrons and, to some degree, for librarians because of the relatively
flexible time limits. It is also a good way for patrons to get some leads in their
search, and to learn some new search methods that they can use in the future. I
don’t think it will ever replace in-person reference services. I think that in-person
services offer more options because librarians can take the patrons to the books
they could use in their research, or take them to the computers and guide them
personally to the websites or databases they could use to find the answers they
need.
Completing this project has made me realize what a difficult job this is, and how
addictive it can be. The search for answers involves detective work, intense
curiosity and persistence. Finding an article or website that seems to fit the patrons
needs perfectly creates a wonderful feeling. And it leads to learning a lot of random
facts and finding endless ways to procrastinate while reading new information. I
think this project made me realize the importance of a good reference interview,
and of offering people a lot of options when you’re not sure what they want –
academic articles, books and newspaper articles. I also learned, through the log part
of this project, how useful it is to write down what you’ve tried – the various
websites and keyword combinations, and the websites that have led to new
websites. I also have a new appreciation for the usefulness of citations in finding
new paths to follow when researching questions. This was a valuable exercise, and I
hope to continue working with the IPL as a volunteer.