Today was a very productive day! I arrived this morning and booted up all of the computers, turned on the lights, etc. I also checked the ILL online mailbox and entered in those requests. I saw one that we used to own, but now no longer. I wonder when IT will be able to upload our catalog to OCLC again.
We opened soon therafter, and my site supervisor wanted me to answer phone calls in the morning, aiding a librarian who had lost her voice. As it was slow, and that didn't officially start for another hour, I went ahead and finished weeding the cookbook section. What a bag of strange books! I actually pulled a cookbook about seaweed from the north atlantic ocean. Bizarre!
After that, phone duty started. I mostly proferred phone numbers and addresses, but I was also introduced to a patron that has a lot of special needs. He originally wanted to know the difference in efficiency between newer models of automobile air conditioners and those of the past. Well, I knew that was going to be a doozy! The librarian and I searched all sorts of places; consumer reports, article databases, the internet, other texts reviewing cars old and new, and actual texts on automobile air conditioners. The air conditioner books turned out to be the best resource we could get, but when I called back he changed his question to a specific make and model of car, which is what we suspected he really wanted all along. I suppose this would be a good learning experience for the reference interview...
At any rate, I pulled books pertinent to his make and model and left a message saying that we'd set them aside.
After that I went to lunch, and when I came back I saw the circulation manager, who instructed me in selecting replacement DVDs for their collection. Really quite simple, except for an old Sherlock Holmes DVD series, (that I actually used to watch with my father.) Nothing too exceptional there.
After that I finished shifting the reference storage area and shelved and stickered a few random books. All in all a productive day.
I arrived at 8am and left at 5pm, totalling 8 hours.
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1 comment:
Glad you got to work on some real reference questions- that one you described sounds like a classic. Someone reminded me that our phones were not working the morning you were scheduled to be on the desk, but I guess they were fixed in time for part of your shift.
Hopefully you will get some more good reference experience this coming Monday. I will send you a sort of itinerary, since I will be out of town.
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