Calls: 1
Only one call today - just a problem with an expired card. Things seem very quiet - the quiet before the storm perhaps? Oh, and just a reminder CJ that the next two Saturdays are my Dreamweaver classes so I will not be working those (as we discussed).
Have a fun shift tomorrow Sarah - I hope you were out enjoying the beautiful weather today.
Calls: 1
Only had one call today; someone has trouble accessing WebCT. Tried to send a bunch of suggestions, but then they just sort of left, so I wasn't sure if it was successful or not. I also had a question waiting for me when I logged on. I tried to see if they were still online, but no luck. CJ - is there any way to change the Meebo settings so patrons will get a message saying something like "The librarian is not online right now" when they write in when we are offline? I know it says in small letters when we are offline, but some students dont't seem to notice that. On the message sent to LiveHelp before I was online, the student seemed to think the service didn't work at all, as opposed to the idea that someone was just not online. (Hope that makes sense).
Other than that, spent some time exploring library renovations. CJ - I sent you an email and a google doc.
Calls: 6
Half of the calls today were about WebAdvisor / WebCT being down. I tried directing people to the phone number that they had posted on the page, but apparently that office was closed. Not sure what else I could have done for them. For those students needing material I suggested they contact their prof to let them know they couldn't access the material, so maybe it could be made available in another way. One person got a little snippy with me. Tried explaining that we are not connected, but to no avail. Hopefully it will be up by tomorrow for you Sarah! Other than that, two pin resetting questions, and a citation problem.
Enjoy your weekends!
[Ugh - the system just deleted my entry so apologies if this is shorter]
Calls:3
A mostly quiet day on the desk. I had one person looking for humanities and social sciences databses in French, so quickly pointed them in the right direction. Also had a pin resetting question (no shift is complete without one!), and a question about fixing errors in the catalog. I looked online at the staff directory but wasn't sure who the best person was to contact, so I directed them to just call the reference desk, as I assumed they would have the best idea of who handles that. Have a fun shift Sunday Sarah.
Me-Linh
Calls 2
Hey guys,
A pretty quiet day on the desk. I got one pretty fun research question that took nearly an hour with the back and forth. CJ - I sent you a transcript of it. It was fun getting into the databases again. Also helped a student with some MLA citation questions. I guess I forget how daunting it can be for a student, especially when there are so many little variations. Have a fun shift tomorrow Sarah!
Calls: 2
Had a bit of an embarrassing start to the new year with PIN problems of my own, but everything was sorted out early in my shift. :S
Both calls tonight were PIN related, and both lead to other questions from the students. One student hadn’t registered her barcode at the library yet and so couldn’t log in to access reserve material. So I accessed it and send it to her through DropZone. It sounded like both calls were from students just starting out this semester.
I enjoyed taking the time to really get to know the different ebooks interfaces – I had no idea they had so many neat features!
Sarah
Calls: 1
Hi CJ and Sarah - Happy New Year!
I only had one call today - a pin resetting issue that was easily resolved. I also had two spammer type people (or at least, that is what I think they were but was not sure). Other than that I concenrated on looking at the eBook resources. Found a couple eBook sites I had not heard of before but that I will use for sure at the reference desk. I won't say which I liked best (so as not to influence Sarah!). I know UBC uses a lot of eBooks from 24x7Books (which UW does not seem to have) and has a lot of problems with it, so am glad I didn't encounter any major access issues with the resources UW has.
Cheers, ml
Calls: 6
A little busier today with six calls, all of them ready reference and pin related. Got to try out some translation tools, which was fun. It has been getting quiet at the physical reference desk as well, so maybe this is normal? Anyway - hope you have a great holiday CJ. I am meeting soon to discuss my schedule for January so hopefully we can sort out the missed shifts soon.
Have a great December - see you in January
Calls: 1
Issues: 0
I had a quick call about WebCT that seemed to be resolved. I think the problem was with their computer so just got them to reboot and start over. Other than that not very busy - I guess people are hunkering down and doing lots of exam studying. Hopefully it will be a little busier tommorrow.
ml
Calls: 4
I guess it’s getting down to the wire for a lot of students finishing their papers, so they seemed to be extra thankful for the Live Help tonight. A few citation questions, and one student with questions approaching the border between reference help and help actually structuring their paper (so I helped them a bit and gave them contact info for the Centre for Academic Writing Tutoring Centre). One reference question was a bit tougher tonight – someone needing primary sources for a paper on ancient olympics vs. modern olympics. I don’t have much experience with searching for primary sources, so I took her email address and worked on that for a while. CJ I sent you the resources I recommended to the student – would you mind quickly look them over to see if I missed anything big?
Other than that, I created screenshots of how to login to Putty with Windows (also sent to you CJ).
Hope you have a wonderful holiday in December! I’ll see you back here on Jan. 10th/11th.
Sarah
Calls: 6
Issues: 1?
Hi all,
Today was pretty quiet for the most part, except when I had 3 calls going at once, two of which were more in-depth. For one student, I guess a teacher had given them an assignment that involved searching libary resources. So, we did some looking through databases. In hindsight I could have involved some more teaching, but was trying not to leave the other two students waiting too long. I also had some ready ref questions, about library hours, MLA, and what WCBC stood for (figured that one out, which really I should have remembered from undergrad! CJ - I will send you a chat log today (exciting stuff!)
My only 'issue' was a student who came on experiencing trouble with WebCT. They said their password has just suddenly stopped working. I went through our list of codes to see if I could get onto WebCT to see if it was a system-wide problem, but didn't see any sign-on codes. So, basically I just referred them to the WebCT help contact info. They didn't sounnd too upset that they couldn't get help til Monday. CJ - do you know if there is something we can do? Could the librarians at UW have helped?
That's about it. Hope you guys have a great weekend. Sarah - have a good "last" shift til January.
ml
Calls: 2
The calls were the same student coming back – once for stats on Canadian immigration, and the other for help accessing a specific article.
The database project is done! All the problems should now be listed on the Google Doc.
CJ, I was thinking a bit about your request for ideas on promoting Live Help. I think you have done a fantastic job already! Having a link to it on the side of every webpage and within many databases, it really does seem like there is a very accessible way to contact someone if a patron runs into trouble at any time. I wonder if, in the databases, instead of being redirected to the page that talks about the service, maybe linking right to a pop-up Meebo window so they can start chatting right away, and can keep their database window open. Also, asking my partner (a non-library geek) for his ideas on promoting it, he said that as an outsider, the logo at the side of the page appears as though the help is possibly only for questions or problems with the website, and not necessarily research help in general. Maybe under the Live Help logo we could put in small letters “for help with research, accessing articles, or anything else!”. He also suggested somehow separating the logo from the “New Books” section – perhaps with a line or a coloured background change – so that it stood out more. The only other idea I have is maybe a sign at the reference desk. Something like, “Tired of waiting to ask your question? A little shy asking it face-to-face? Then try asking it in an online chat with ‘Live Help’!” But like I said, I think you’ve done a great job promoting it already. I wonder if maybe some people just prefer using other methods for their questions.
Sarah
Calls: 4
Calls were pretty standard – help with PIN, APA, accessing full text, and locating databases. It’s nice now that I have a bit of experience under my belt and I know my way around a little better, so that these questions aren’t a big deal.
Writing up the description of CLIO Notes was fun. And I got up to SCOLA in the databases. (Should be done the project soon!)
One thing that seems to be repeatedly coming up in questions is confusion over when a database provides the full text to an article, however that particular issue isn’t available in our subscription. (For instance, search for the article “Box of Bones...” in the Nature Online database. I guess that makes Nature Online, not in fact complete full text?). It’s confusing for patrons because they see the link to the PDF, and know that they logged in, but they get either get an error while loading the PDF or a prompt for another password. (I’ve had students in the past with similar problems in other databases too). Is there a way to either enable GODOT in these databases or disable the PDF links entirely?
Sarah
Calls: 1
I thought I might get skunked tonight, but one student texted near the end of the shift with one question that lead to another… which lead to an hour long research help session – it was great. :)
Got up to the O’s in the databases.
I also read the suggested readings about virtual reference. It was nice to see I was on the right track with things, and I got a few useful phrases from the articles – like “How will you be using this information? It will help me know what type of resources I should suggest.” They got me excited about providing even more welcoming and personal virtual reference.
Oh, and CJ, I’m not sure what was happening last week with the PubMed IDs, but they’re working fine now.
Sarah
Calls: 2
A quiet day. One call was involved pin-resetting, but actually took quite a long time to do. My second question just involved locating a journal article for a patron.
The rest of the time was spend going through databases (Sarah - start at 'L'). Some problems found, but nothing too major. My favorite database today was the directory of household products and all the possible chemicals in them (who knew?).
Pretty uneventful. Sarah - hope you have fun tomorrow. Oh, and CJ, just a reminder that Sarah will be doing both shifts next week, and I will cover hers the last weekend in November.
Calls: 2
I downloaded Jing and immediately fell in love. I also downloaded the Library Toolbar and was impressed with how much faster it makes searching. Although I’d also like to do things the old fashioned way, just so I’m efficient at them as well for when I’m talking a student through how to do something. For some reason my PubMed IDs weren’t clickable, so I didn’t get to play around with that. I did up to (and including) ERIC in the database project. Lots of problems found tonight.
I had one long conversation with a person looking for 5 reference books they’d want if they were on a desert island, for an assignment. We started with Choice reviews. They seemed to be having a really hard time finding the links I was talking about on the page, so Jing came in handy many times. Unfortunately, just as we got into the database they decided they’d rather use Google. I tried to gently suggest that they would probably get better results using a database, but there was no talking them out of it.
Someone also asked about photocopying in the library. Between the two of us we figured out that it was probably their student card that was required in the card reader, but I couldn’t find anywhere on the library or U of W website where to add money to it. Do you know about this CJ? The library was closed at that point – are students allowed in the library after it’s closed? It sounded like they were in the library at the time.
That’s all for tonight.
Calls: 2
Issues: 0
Both of my class today happened pretty early in the day, were PIN related and easily resolved.
So, spent the day going through the databases. Sarah - I got up to (and finished) City of Winnipeg Neighborhood Profiles. I actually enjoyed just poking through the various databases. My favorite is North American Birds Online - I spent a good five minutes just listening to different bird calls. I also found a lot of the census stuff quite helpful to know about, and really enjoyed the art databases (in particular ArtStor, which is really well designed). I noted the problems I encountered onto the google doc. CJ - please let me know if you need more detailed information.
That's about it - hope everyone enjoys the extra hour of sleep tomorrow!
Me-Linh
Calls: 2
Issues: 0
Both calls were somewhat interesting – one wanting to know how to find a book review for a particular book, and the other having trouble accessing the fulltext of a certain article (I think the database mistakenly posted a link to a PDF file, as the article was from 1964, and so not fulltext accessible).
I continued to work on writing myself a cheat sheet for some key things I’ve discovered about the library/website that I might need to refer to in future calls. I also started on the database checking project, checking:
1. Does the link from the databases list work?
2. When in the database and doing a search, does the “find text” button work (not all databases would have one)?
3. Are there any other problems with the database? (e.g. doesn't redirect properly, doesn't recognize UofW subscription, etc.)
Also, if it was a database I was unfamiliar with, I did some poking around. Starting at “A”, I got up to, but not including “Arts and Humanities Citation Index”. I’ve started a Google Spreadsheet with a list of errors so far. I also invited Alex Homanchuk (a.homanchuk@uwinnipeg.ca) to view the page, as I understand he will be the one that will deal with these issues. There haven’t been any major issues with any databases yet. I’ve posted a few small things that I’ve noticed, and asked Alex if he is interested in these types of issues.
One thought crossed my mind when poking through these databases. There seem to be a few subjects – such as Africa or African Studies – that have specialized databases (I found AfricaBib and Aluka so far). But these databases aren’t in fact grouped together in any place so that a student wanting to look for articles limited to African geography or culture could find them. I understand that this subject area isn’t a big focus of U of W, but I feel like they get lost in the long list of databases currently. I’m not exactly sure what I’m proposing, as I understand that the list of “Databases by Subject” is already overwhelmingly long...
Calls: 1
Issues: 0
Very slow day today. One call about ILL early in the shift that was prety easily resolved. Did some additional searching on libraries, wikipedia and metadata and turned up a couple more articles but nothing really great. A lot of articles just kind of throw the line "librarians should write entries in Wikipedia" in there, but don't really expand. I did run across this grey lit paper called "Why Do People Write for Wikipedia? Incentives to Contribute to Open-Content Publishing" (
jellis.org/work/group2005/papers/forteBruckmanIncentivesGroup.pdf) that had some interesting points, although none specifically about librarians.
Have a great shift tomorrow Sarah - although I'll be very jealous if you get another 12 calls.
Calls: 12 (including the 2 answered by CJ during training)
Issues: 2 (site down and problems resetting PIN)
Well, my first shift was a lot busier than I thought it would be after reading past shift reports. The calls seemed to come in waves so I was juggling 3 or 4 at a time, but they all seemed to work out. Most were PIN or access questions, but a few were actual reference questions that seemed to go well. (Yay, I'm a real reference librarian!)
The site was down for a bit at the beginning of training, but the emergency Systems cell was called and the site was up again shortly.
There was a problem with Putty that was completely my fault. After resetting a PIN I was just pressing 'Q' and not 'M' to make the change, which froze a patron's account for a while. But after some time with Putty shut down, the account did reset. One other question about Putty: it seemed to time-out very frequently (possibly every half hour?), making it difficult to keep it open and ready for the next time I needed to use it. Is it possible to change this setting so that it sits idle for longer before it logs out?
One patron did message, asking about the printers in the library (LIBREF1 and LIBREF2), saying that they both had an 'out of order' sign on them. Are there any other options for them to print in the library if this is the case? (They didn't seem to want to know about computers outside of the library).
One other question about old exams was easily answered with the information posted on a previous blog entry. Super!
I didn't have too much time to look around the site, but I did review it pretty thoroughly before my first shift. I mostly started creating myself a cheat sheet of important info.
Overall: learning curve and spirits were high. I'm sure next shift will be even better. :)
Calls: 4
Issues: 0
A pretty quiet day today. I had one semi research related question, but it turned out to be more of an access problem. Same access as before - couldn't get onto certain EBSCO and ProQuest databases. I gave him/her the tricks to try, and told them to come back if it didn't work. No further word so assumed it worked. None of the questions were interesting enough that I copied them CJ - mostly just technical stuff (e.g., what is microfilm).
I also got started on the lit review, and have put everything I found in a RefWorks folder. I looked through LISA, LISTA, and Library Literature & Information Science with various keywords involving wikipedia and metadata. I found under a dozen articles dealing with wikis/wikipedia and metadata, and found a dozen or so articles on librarians and wikipedia.
The seminal articles on the latter topic seem to be:
Badke, William. "What to Do With Wikipedia." Online: Exploring Technology & Resources for Information Professionals 32.2: (2008), 48-50.
Lally,Ann M.; Dunford,Carolyn E. (2007). Using Wikipedia to Extend Digital Collections
D-Lib Magazine, 2007.
That being said, I think the biblioblogosphere (what a truly nerdy word!) is also a great reference point. A lot of librarians contributing to Wikipedia are bloggers. Some sites to check out include:
http://libraryjuicepress.com/blog/?p=103
http://www.librarian.net/stax/2004/me-talking-about-wikipedia-again/
http://spencerjardine.blogspot.com/2008/06/bill-badke-on-wikipedia.html
http://www.cni.org/tfms/2007a.spring/abstracts/PB-wikipedia-lally.html
A final valuable resourse is the WikiProject Librarians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Librarians) site.
I hope this is a good enough start.
Have a great shift tomorrow Sarah!
Me-Linh
http://www.wallandbinkley.com/quaedam/?p=25
http://www.ibiblio.org/pomerantz/blog/?p=171
Calls: 1
Issues: 0
A slow day today, so I went through all of the Information Research Guide sections for a final edit and review, with the exception of the Assignments/papers section, as it seems that Me-Linh has already thoroughly reviewed that area.
The pages I have now worked on include:
• Home
• Finding Book Reviews
• Finding Books
• Finding Internet Sources
• Finding Journal Articles
• Finding Numeric Data, and
• Finding Primary/Secondary Sources
• Explore with associations
• Explore your field of study
• Ask for help!
• Live Help Online
• Reference desk service
• Research Consultations
I tried out the toolbar and found it helpful, but I don’t know enough about this, or the issues with Wikipedia to comment. I was able to copy and paste my chat session into a word document with no problem, but the solitary session was a rather dull pin-resetting with no issues, so I decided not to include it here as I assumed you wanted us to save ones with issues.
Goodnight!
Karen
Calls: 8
Issues: 1 (database access)
A busy day at the desk today. Only one or two pin questions but a lot of trouble accessing databases. CJ and I talked about this briefly, but the hard part was that I was able to access these databases and they weren't. The ones that got mentioned as troublemakers were JStor and Project Muse, and some other unnamed ones. Karen, if you run across this problem some solutions to try are making sure pop-ups are enabled, switching browsers (Firefox tends to work best), or shutting down the app and restarting. For one girl, I also recommended she try some other databases for searching if she couldn't get on to those specific ones. I think is is hard for students bc they find one database they like or are familiar with, and they tend to just want to stick with it!
CJ - for the Library Guides I tried to add content, links, and clean up a little bit on the following pages:
- Home (added boxes and content)
- Finding Information
- Finding books
- Finding book reviews
- 'Assignments/Papers'
- Choose a Topic for Research Paper
- Citation style guides
- Lit Reviews(I added in the info from 'What to do with Research' into the lit review so I think you could delete that page)
-How do I use RefWorks
- Plagarism
- Explore
- I just proofread the two pages
- Research Assistance
- I proofread and added some links and light content in.
One suggestions for another page is: "Difference between scholarly and popular articles". Oh, and maybe a "Finding Newspapers" and "Finding Government Information" (UN, WHO, EU, etc)
I tried out the toolbar but didn't get a chance to really test it. It seemed quite useful, perhaps most to librarians and upper level students. I will do my best to try it out some more next shift.
Finally - CJ, you mentioned us being able to cut and paste our chats from Meebo if we wanted to review them, but am nearly positive we can't cut and paste from there. Correct me if I am wrong (and let me know why I can't!).
Have a good shift tomorrow Karen!
[Please note this is my blog entry from last week (Sept. 28) that I wasn't able to post for some reason]
Calls: 7
Issues: None
Had my first real reference question today. Not totally happy with the answer but think it sent them on the right track. Lots of pin related questions as well, but am getting better at them. In my spare time worked on the LibGuides. Almost finished updating all of the guides in the Assignments tab (research topics, citations etc.) A lot of the info was duplicated CJ so I did some deleting. Basically, there were two pages on Developing a research topic, and two pages on Lit Reviews so I amalgamated them and cleaned them up. Also added some content and thing like that. Still some more work to do, but good progress. That's about it.
Me-Linh
Calls 5
Issues 0
It was a night of pin resetting and long chat sessions trying to get students logged into databases. Of four calls on access problems, only one was resolved easily after resetting the pin on the first try. The first student who had difficulties had three library records with three email addresses and two library barcodes. Once I deleted an almost empty record and updated the other one linked to his current barcode, we were able to get his pin updated. The last two pin issues were frustrating and were long calls. For one, after multiple attempts on both our parts to reset the pin and access the databases, we discovered at the same time that the barcode had expired at the end of August. Thanks for that tip, Me-Linh. The last call was a pin/access problem I could not resolve. We tried resetting multiple times, and trying different entry points, but nothing seemed to work. We tried all of Me-Linh’s tricks too. In the end I suggested they go to the library to see what the issue is, and offered to help them with any research they needed tonight, but luckily they were not in a paper crunch, just planning to read ahead.
One pleasant question I had was in accessing books from different libraries, the student was doing a research assignment for History. One question in the assignment said to find some books in the U of Toronto library, that aren't in the U of W library, then to ask a librarian how to get that book. We looked at the catalogue, and its other locations, ILL, and WorldCat. The student said, “I’m impressed at how easy it is to get books with our library!” After all of the pin work, I spent the end of the shift winding down by reading Communication Strategies for Instant Messaging and Chat Reference Services.
Karen
Calls 3
Issues 0
Hi! My shift was busier today, with more complex questions. One question was on using Ebsco host to search databases, one spam message (which I didn’t count on my calls above), and a question, “I know you can use computers in the library, but are you able to print word documents in there?” I searched the library website but I couldn’t seem to find a page that said where someone could uses printers. I sent them to Uplink Computer Common and also told them to “check at the library reference desk too, and they can tell you where it might also be possible to print documents in the library”. Please let me know if there is a page I can refer to in the future with this information. The third call was a lost card, and when I searched putty, the record said “No barcode”! I told the student that they would need to get a new student card at Student Central, and then bring the new card to the library to get your record updated (thanks CJ!). I then helped the student with their research by finding three journal articles on their topic, and emailed the articles to her.
I worked on updating the Information Research Guide on the libguide. I edited the content and where possible reformatted the pages, so they look better and are easier to navigate. I got through Home, and Finding Information (Finding Book Reviews, Finding Books, Finding Internet Sources, Finding Journal Articles, Finding Numeric Data, and Finding Primary/Secondary Sources). I will continue to work on this next week. CJ, do you think I should put a link to subject guides in the Explore your field of study section?
Karen
Calls: 7
Issues: 1
Hi,
A bit of a frustrating day today. A lot of pin and barcode related problems. I am wondering if there is a problems with the system as all the students seemed to have problems with pins they had used before. Another problem was the Reset Pin option (http://library.uwinnipeg.ca/mycybrary/login/dsp_resetPin.cfm) which wasn't working. By the time I realized it was not just a one-off the Ref desk at UW had closed. The students (and me when I tried it) kept getting a 'Database not working' kind of message. So, a lot of resetting of pins.
CJ - would you mind checking this and ensuring that I am doing things in the right order and am not missing something totally obvious?
What to do when a student’s PIN isn’t working
1. Check to see if student even has a PIN
• Go to http://mercury.uwinnipeg.ca/patroninfo~S1
• Get student to enter in barcode and NO pin
2. Check to see if student can reset pin using their email address
• Go to Reset My Pin http://library.uwinnipeg.ca/mycybrary/login/dsp_resetPin.cfm
3. Check that student’s barcode is working
• Go to Check My Barcode http://library.uwinnipeg.ca/mycybrary/public/getBcode.cfm
4. Login into Terminal and look into student record using http://library.uwinnipeg.ca/staff-only/vref/index.cfm
5. Make sure patron is using correct email address to reset their password.
6. If all of these options fail then reset student pin
---
Other than that the day was fine. The pin questions took up a lot of time each time they came in. Because I forgot the LibGuides password, I spent time exploring the site even more, and reading through Virtual Reference books I picked up from the UBC Library.
Calls: 3
Issues: 1 (minor)
Very quiet today - only three questions - all of which were related to access (passwords, barcode, etc.). My only issue was this - I was trying to help one girl gain access to the databases. She/he kept saying she was getting error messages. I was having no problem accessing the same pages, and tried to get info on where exactly she was going. Before I could finish helping her she/he just gave up. It was frustrating because it seemed like a problem on her side (i.e., with cookies, or security certificates) but it is hard to talk someone through that without seeing the error message. Based on the very limited virtual ref experience I have, it seems users are not particulary forthcoming with information! Anyway, nothing can really 'solve' this problem, I just felt ineffectual for not being able to help.
Spent most of the day updating Linwood's spreadsheet. I found it best to use WorldCat for checking call numbers and years. Using WorldCat through the UW catalog allows a back-up check to make sure we really don't have it in the catalog. I used Amicus sometimes - mostly for Canadian books that WorldCat didn't have LC's for. Karen - I left you some for fun!
CJ - I also spent time updating some of the Library Guide pages, specifically HOME, FINDING BOOK REVIEWS, and FINDING BOOKS. I tried to clean some of the writing up, add more links, one more box, and things like that. Let me know if I am not on the right track. Unless I hear otherwise that will be the project work I continue with next week (Karen - please let me know which pages you work on so I don't just duplicate what you have done).
Calls: 3
Issues: None
It was quiet online tonight with two callers wanting assistance with course reserves, and one asking if the library was open. Both questions about the course reserves were students looking for items that were not posted yet. I learned that in the reserve item list for a class, that even if the item is showing and the CALL # says "Electronic Reserve -- -- AVAILABLE", that if the FORMAT is blank, then the item is not there until it says *ELECTRONIC COPY AVAILABLE*.
I found the David Carter's article CJ recommended very interesting, especially this tidbit about not completing the reference interview before starting your search, "Continue with the reference interview, but while you are waiting for the patron to respond, start your searching." I found most of the article was very relevant to today's virtual reference even though the article was written five years ago. I also discovered that when I logged on to UBC's remote proxy to search for the article in a LIS database, that it kicked me off Meebo! It did the same thing when I disconnected, but fortunately Meebo lets you know right away.
I spent time looking through the catalogue for various materials, and getting familiar with searching from different web pages. I also looked at some of the LibGuides and subject databases. Next week I will spend time looking at all of the information under the About tab, and looking at more databases.
Have a good week,
Karen
Calls: 3
Issues: None
The shift was pretty slow today. Three questions and all were technical based. I did learn how to reset a pin though! I spent most of the shift just familiarizing myself with the library website. I was able to access the Library Guides once I clicked on the full listing of them (as opposed to using the side links), so got a taste for them. Also checked out the RefWorks tutorials just as a refresher. Oh, and I found the two articles you recommended very helpful CJ (actually, a lot of the articles in that issue were helpful).
For next week - let me know if there is something specific you want me to work on during the downtime other than just database review.
See you next week,
Me-Linh
Calls: 10
Issues: None
Tonight was steady with research and technical questions. Students were once again thankful to have someone there to help them
This was my last shift and I can't thank you enough CJ! What a great experience and opportunity you have provided with this position. I really think IM reference is around to stay in the library world and this experience has provided me a great knowledge of the service. I have learned so much and thank you for your ongoing support.
Cheers and thanks,
Heather
Calls: 5
Issues: none
Calls: 4
Issues: None
Calls were simple, mostly outside of the library such as hours of university buildings. Things were quiet. Had a couple of patrons come on just to see if someone was there and to say Happy Easter.
Hope you had a good Easter!
Calls: 7
Issues: Problem with the Library Guide Write n' Cite instructions
Calls: 3
Issues: none
Calls: 11
Issues: None
Had some interesting calls today that took up some time. Added a small box to CJ's faculty libguide...not sure if it is right or not but I thought I would try. Other than that it was a good day overall.
Have a good week,
Heather
Calls: 11
Issues: Could not use 'find text' on some EBSCO databases
Was steady tonight with database questions and trouble locating full text articles. I had a really bad migraine all day and was unable to do any other work (staring at the screen was really bad). I apologize and promise to work extra hard next weekend.
Calls: 8
Issues: Meebo disconnected briefly, but came back in service shortly thereafter.
Calls: 20
Issues: None
It was very very busy tonight with almost constant questions, and some really in depth. I did not get the opportunity to work on anything else. That being said, I am unaware of the project that Cathy is working on - should I be working on it too? If so, where to do I find the information regarding the project?
I also received a lot of positive feedback about the LiveHelp system this evening - yay!
Have a great week,
Heather
Calls: 14
Issues: none
Calls: 13
Issues: None
Steady night kept me on my toes. Worked some on cleaning up marketing blurbs from last week and will post next week.
Calls: three
Issues: none
Calls: 2
Issues: none
Calls: 6
Issues: Broken link in journal list
Quiet day with only a couple of in depth question. The link in the journal list for History Compass is broken but it can be accessed by searching for Blackwell-Synergy in databases. Worked on marketing task for databases - will post as unpublished next shift.
Heather
Calls: 10
Issues: 0
Steady shift with some in depth research questions and general help with the databases. I worked a bit on another posting for the library news, but didn't manage to get it finished. Had another person just wanting to 'chat' but I did not mark this down in the stats. I'm hoping if the 'chat' is pleasant and quick the patron will think to return when he/she actually needs library help.
Heather
Calls: four
Issues: none
Calls: 6
Issues: 0
Posted two entries to the Library News and they are unpublished. Other than that, it was a fairly quiet night.
Heather
Calls: 6
Issues: none
Calls: 15
Issues: None
Very busy with lots of different kinds of questions.
Emailed CJ my paragraph on a library tool, I chose Ulrich's.
Also, I cannot access XLearn (it says invalid password).
I could also not access putty (it says access denied, is there a new password since the other one was specific to the fall term?).
Hope you are staying warm.
Heather
Calls: 5
Issues: none
Calls: 8
Issues: none
Questions: 5
Issues: none
Calls: 0
Issues: 0
Very slow today, only worked 2.5 hours of the shift.
Calls: 12
Issues: 0
Things were busy tonight with many questions about registration and passwords. I didn't get to writing the task, but I did some research trying to choose what I want to 'market'. Was actually quite surprised at how steady the calls were - kept me on my toes :)
Questions: 7
Issues: none
Happy New Year! Today was a relatively quiet day; most questions were brief--login issues or pin removals.
I worked on L' Île, a database on Quebec authors, for the project. I've saved an unpublished version in Moveable type's Library News section.
Best,
Cathy
Calls: 11
Issues: None
A steady shift with several login questions - usually students who had not previously created a RefWorks account. Sorry to hear about Winnipeg losing to THE RIDERS!!!!
Heather
Calls: 8
Issues: 0
Steady day again today with several new users and some in depth questions. Finding this week and last that there are some students who have never used the website or library systems before so it presents a bit of a challenge to explain the systems over IM. But, by working with the student, and having some patience, we always mange to find what they need!
Cheers,
Heather
Calls: 13
Issues: 2
Steady day today. My UWinnipeg was down and so there were many calls about logging into webmail. I emailed the computer help desk about the outage.The meebo network also went down for about half an hour in the middle of the day, but came back up and worked for the rest of the shift.
A patron signalled that a book listed as out in the catalogue is in fact on the shelf. I emailed circulation about this.
Thanks,
Cathy
Calls: 8
Issues: None
Steady today again with people who were not familiar with database use. As a result several interactions were very time consuming. Continued to look at the viewlets.
Thanks,
Heather
Calls: 13
Issues: 1
Calls: 8
Issues: None
Dealt with some first time users again tonight which can be very time consuming. The widget seemed to be working well. Spent some time making notes on the viewlets for RefWorks. Also, had a question about library hours and LiveHelp hours - is it possible to put them on the same place on the library homepage?
Thanks,
Heather
Calls: three
Issues: none
Calls: four
Issues: UWinnipeg website down today.
Calls: 13
Issues: Students were having troubles logging into databases when they were logged into MyCybrary. Most issues could be resolved by having them log out of Cybrary and into individual databases. Had a few first time users today which was very time consuming.
Projects: Tried to work on Viewlets project...but was very busy with calls. Looked at the Web Of Science one and noted some changes in my notes. Was unable to go much further than that. Mine and Cathy's joint blog post regarding RefWorks instruction should be posted tomorrow.
Calls: 10
Issues: There seemed to be a problem with the database servers tonight as several patrons could not access them remotely, even though barcodes and emails were ok. Talked with CJ about this and we are hoping it was a server issue. Also, the Meebo widget seemed to take a long time to connect during some times today; however, during other times it was much faster.
Projects: Was very busy with calls and some in depth/new user patrons. Tried to look at bit at the Refworks Viewlets but it was quite steady with patrons needing assistance. Also talked with CJ about the RefWorks project and will talk with Cathy about creating a joint blog posting this week.
Calls: 6
Issues: Widget was finicky: displayed on and offline all day.
Questions: 5
Issues: 2 calls indicating trouble logging in remotely to databases. The issue in both cases was expiry of privileges (both expired Aug. 31, 2007). Second caller indicated that she was a full time student and had paid all her fees. She appeared also to have 5 checkouts. I indicated that I was authorized only to clear PINs and change email addresses and referred both patrons to circulation.
The second issue is in editing Refworks Vendor info. Changes need to be made to the Importing instructions, and I don't know how to do that.
A fairly quiet night. Worked on the RefWorks project, and, I think, finished it (although I can see where vendors, like LexisNexis, could be added to the Vendor help list and thus extend the project).
Hi Everyone,
Number of Calls: 7
Issues today: No issues today
Project: Between IM questions I tried to work on the RefWorks project. It did not go very well as the queries took a long time and I was feeling very ill today. Did a lot of reading of help pages on various databases on how to export to see if I would have any more luck.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone,
Heather
Questions: 1.
Issues: none.
Questions: 1.
Issues: none.
Hi Everyone,
Number of Calls: 6
Issues today: No issues today
Project: I worked on the RefWorks project today:
ProQuest worked just fine.
JSOTR – Worked well also but I took out ‘pull down menu’ command as it was not necessary due to button to directly export citations into RefWorks.
OCLC – Worked well also.
Elsevier (Science Direct) – Directions in the notes said there was no direct export, however, there is a link and clear instructions to carry out a direct export into RefWorks from the Science Direct DB. That being said, after about one hour I still could not make it work. I did not change any of the existing directions on the vendor page.
ISI – Tried to follow instructions listed, could not make it work. Tried several other things to try to get it to work and could not. After about 50 minutes I gave up. I did not change any of the existing directions on the vendor page.
ABC-CLIO – could not figure out which database this was
Cambridge Scientific Abstracts – could not find
ProjectMuse – worked just fine.
SAGE Journals Online – tried and tried to make this one work…for some reason could not. Did not change any existing directions on the vendor page.
Questions today were very time consuming.
Thanks to Margaret for covering my lunchbreak and also helping me with on question over the phone - finally decided to ask patron to call her internet service provider.
Thanks,
Heather
A steady shift. 7 questions, most of which took around 45 minutes to resolve (or not). The shift was quiet for the first two hours, and then picked up after that. Questions were largely reference rather than access issues, although there were some of the latter, including an unresolved one at the very end of the day (patron was attempting to log into a sport database with, seemingly, the correct barcode and email address. I left the patron's email with CJ.)
I worked through refworks exporting in some of the databases in the first two hours. There were some problems. I did not change the instructions, as I thought my issues may have been idiosyncratic. I will paste my notes on this activity below:
1.Academic Search Elite: After choosing "Save" there is no option to "export directly to Refworks". There is no "bibliographic manager" tab from which to do this. If you bypass "save" and go directly to "Export" you do see the "export directly to Refworks" option, but it does not work. The only way I could export something was to pick "generic bibliographic software" and copy and paste the resulting record into a text file, and then import that from within Refworks (select University of Winnipeg from the "Import filter/Data source" dropdown menu, and then "Academic Search Elite from the Database dropdown); either browse for the named text file, or paste its text into the window under "Import data from the following text."
Ebsco indicates in its own "new features" section that it has streamlined exporting; however, there seems to be a glitch.
2. Academic Universe (LexisNexis interface): mark the record; click export; it opens Refworks and exports directly. Simple.
3. ACM Digital Library: Search. Select "full citation" view from the particular item you want. In "Display Formats" (to the right of "Tools and Actions") select "Endnote." Copy the coded stuff that comes up and paste it into a text file. Save the file under some name to the desktop. Open Refworks. Select "Import." In the Import window select "Endnote View" from the dropdown menu for "Import Filter/Data Source." The "Database" dropdown menu should automatically change to "Endnote View" also. Either browse for the named text file under "Import Data from the following text file" or select "Import data from the following text" and paste the contents of the text file into the window. Either way, hit Import.
That's it. Good night!
Today was quite busy! I had eight questions, many of which were long and detailed. Everytime I went to look at the RefWorks stuff I was asked a question (it was like they knew or something!) so I will try to get to that more next week. Things are coming a little bit quicker although I was stumped today on whether or not the library physically held copies of newspapers and which ones. That is another hurdle of being here in Edmonton and having never been physically to the UW library. Other than that, things went well...just very very busy.
A very busy shift. Steady flow of questions all day, mostly about technical issues (logging into databases, refworks, and course reserves, and how to get hold of a book from CMU). I phoned the help desk about three times for assistance, and the person on shift was very gracious and extremely helpful. She told me that CMU texts can be procured with an interlibrary loan, as long as students are able to indicate in the form why they can't go over there to get the material in person. She assured me that nothing was wrong with my IM link when I got the message "meeboguest has left your page." Apparently they open a new window and lose the connection. She let me know that jobs in the library (beside IM reference, of course) can be had by people who are not UW students (I guess that should have been kind of obvious to me, but I was wondering about the inperson roles).
I didn't have time to do the tasks you listed in the blog, CJ. Largely because I was having to think carefully about each question (just which login is used where?) and it sometimes took me a long time to sort things out with the questioners. I did look at Jing, and it does look pretty cool. I also took a stab at searching Bibliographic Management systems on Google--I ended up mostly looking at Sourceforge's stuff and wondering if any of that would work. Sometimes it was not obvious if these systems were web-based or not. Didn't get to the Refworks work--sorry. Is it standard to have to use the Refworks group code (RWUWinn) to get in through remote access?
8 questions in total.
Bye for now,
Cathy
Hello,
My first shift at LiveHelp was fairly uneventful: one question about the possibility of looking at grades online. No, was the answer: the student would have to go in person to Student Central. CJ helped me greatly with that one, and with everything else.
The Meebo widget on the library page wasn't working today: it displayed Livehelp as being offline all day. Perhaps this accounts for the fact that we got only one question. Someone did sign in as a buddy, but did not ask a question.
That's about it. I spent my time working through the library and UWinnipeg websites, and running through the Refworks tutorials. I have lots to learn, but the learning is very enjoyable. Thanks again, CJ, for all your help. I'm very glad to be here.
Cathy
Hi Everyone,
Number of Calls: 0
Issues: No issues today.
Project: I have finished “I have to write a Topic Research Paper…” today and also have emailed the files to CJ.
Having worked with both Rakim and Meebo, I would recommend the library to go with Meebo. Just as James said, Meebo has much less technical problems and is more user-friendly. Especially the user can see that UWLiveHelp is typing while UWLiveHelp is typing in Meebo. This is a very important feature to both the user and the librarian.
Final remark: It has been a great learning opportunity working as the Chat Reference Intern for the University of Winnipeg Library. The experience with UWinnipeg Library not only have complemented and reinforced what I have learned in class, but also will benefit my future career.
I would like to sincerely thank CJ and other colleagues from Reference Desk and Circulation Desk who have given me great support and help. Also thank you CJ for those wonderful projects.
Thank you!
Rachel
Number of Calls: 2 (1 Meebo, 1 RAKIM)
Issues today: none
This is my final shift. Wow it seems that it was just yesterday that I started. It has been an education to work with the University of Winnipeg Library. Than you for the opportunity.
A highlight of the experience was the adoption of the Meebo service. As the library contemplates whether to drop RAKIM and continue only with Meebo I strongly encourage them to do so. Meebo offers so much more than RAKIM. The coversation is much more fluid in Meebo and the service is not plagued with the technical problems RAKIM experiences.
For one Meebo users can see when you are in the middle of typing and you them. This takes a little of the mystery out of the conversation (are they still there - are they getting my messages).
Often in RAKIM what you type does not seem to show up and the responses of the patrons too. There is nothing to prompt you to click on the patron's tab to see those comments. RAKIM also needs a dedicated browser for its ringer to work - tabbed browsing is a powerful tool when working with multiple patrons and sources.
Another feature in Meebo is the availability of emoticons. Sure you can use the colon bracket method :) but does every student or faculty member asking questions even know what that means. How about :/ or :p ;) ;( The ability to express emotions in a text based conversation is important.
Meebo also allows you to see multiple conversations at once. Conversations are not hidden behind tabs.
I've suggested to several students to use our Meebo service when conversations have begun to break down in the RAKIM interface. Each time students have expressed how much easier and better Meebo is. So hooray for Meebo - keep it going and get rid of the dinosaur RAKIM - it was a good start but its time to move on.
Another final suggestion - why not use a wiki for the IRG. This would allow for so more collaboration on the project and the ability to add to it on a consistent basis. Tips and tricks in online research are often changing, A guide that has the same ability is a necessity if you wish it to be a useful and dynamic resource.
Thanks again for the opportunity and experience. I have to admit I'll be glad to have my weekend back :)
James
Calls today: 4 (1 meebo, 3 RAKIM)
Issues: none today.
Projects I am working on: "I Have to Write A Literature Review" for the IRG
One shift left - bitter sweet really.
Bye till next week
James
Hi Everyone,
Number of Calls: 6 (5 IM; 1 RAKIM)
Issues: No issues today. Almost all the calls were about searching articles for papers.
Project: I was working on “I have to write a Topic Research Paper…”. I completed “How do I find...” session, and part of “How do I cite my sources (References, Works Cited, Bibliographies, In-text Citations)” session.
Thank you,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of Calls: 3 (1 IM; 2 RAKIM)
Issues: No issues today.
Project: I am working on “I have to write a Topic Research Paper…” and finished “Where do I start?” session and part of “How do I find...” session.
Thank you,
Rachel
Calls today - 3 Meebo calls
Issues: I got the email about the library assignment too late - I spent a while with one student looking for those articles - over an hour - I'd have found them if I wasn't showing the student the library ropes :) and he/she didn't have to run to work.
Personally I think they were using work as an excuse to not learn anything more about finding articles in the library. Ah well - He is all the brighter now for sticking with me that long.
Projects: I worked on the section for searching the Deep Web for the IRG and using web 2.0 features to enhance your research - I've emailed those sections to CJ.
It's Saint Patrick's Day. Lets all celebrate the coming of Christianity to Ireland by getting completely sloshed.... seems a little at odds with the message but perhaps not in a historical context Christmas has always been notorious for that.
I understand the use of the three leaf clover as an analogy for the Trinity - but what happens to that analogy when you find a lucky four leaf clover. Who might be represented by that fourth leaf? And why so lucky?
I'm not wearing green - but thats no excuse to keep pinching me :)
James
Number of calls - 3 in Meebo I think
Issues: I posted this already but it somehow got lost in the 0s and 1s of computer land. I wrote the end of shift report and published it but somehow its no longer there. It not among the unpublished entries either. So it is now Wednesday evening and I am writing this report.
Projects: Do you honestly expect me to remember what I worked on on Satruday? I can't even remember what I had for breakfast this morning. Well I'm sure I worked on something... I'm working on the IRG section for finding resources online and in the deep web - you'll get then this coming Saturday CJ.
Alright I'm out
James
Hi Everyone,
Number of Calls: 4 (2 IM; 2 RAKIM)
Issues: No issues today.
Project: I am working on “I have to write a Topic Research Paper…”. This one looks big. It may take me a couple of shifts.
.
Thank you,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of Calls: 4 (2 IM; 2 RAKIM)
Issues: No issues today.
Project: I was working on “I have to choose a topic for a research paper”. I did not do “How do I learn more about my topic?” part because I put ideas about it into “What is an appropriate topic?” part.
Thank you,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of Calls: 6 (3 IM; 3 RAKIM)
Issues: No issues today.
Students were asking more research related questions, such as how to search for a topic and how to cite sources.
Project: I am still working on tips and tricks for doing library research. I planned to finish it tonight, but was not able to with 6 calls.
CJ, I have a question regarding this section. What would you like to put in “Leaving library research too late?” If a student left the library research too late, what can they do? I am having hard time with this. Could you please give me some clue?
Thank you,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 4 (3 RAKIM, 1 Meebo)
Issues: I’m not sure if I should call this issue. But it might be helpful to others if I mentioned it here. A student was trying to access RefWorks off campus and he needed the group code. I believe that the group code is necessary for accessing RefWorks off campus. Am I right? If so, probably the reference staff needs to be aware of it.
Project: I was working on “Tips and tricks for doing library research” section.
Thank you,
Rachel
Calls Today 6 or 7 - (4 Rakim 2 or 3 Meebo)
Issues: I had some browser problems this afternoon - Firefox went on the fritz - kept freezing up on me. I managed to work it out though eventually.
Projects: between the calls and my computer problems I didn't manage much today in the way of projects.
My eyes hurt from staring at this screen too long - think I'll go home and watch tv - does that make any sense...
James "clueless in Alberta*
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 3 (1 Meebo, 2 Rakim)
Issues: No issues today. I did not buy a Mac, but switched to another computer. On this computer, both Meebo and Rakim were working fine in Firefox. It was really nice without technical problems.
Project: I finally finished “I would like to explore the literature and research in my field of study…” section and have emailed the html files to CJ.
Thank you,
Rachel
Calls today 2 - both Rakim
I hear ya Rachel - RAKIM gave me the same problems with IE 6 & 7 and Firefox in regards to the sound. I eventually downloaded the web browser Opera - which is rather slick really - I've had no problems with it yet.
Issues: None
Projects: I thought I would add to the IRG section on Internet searching or Finding Internet Sources - I've been working on a definition of the deep web. I think these two sections: Internet Searching and Finding Internet sources should be merged into one section.
Working on a deep web section is rather distracting... :)
We had a foot of snow yesterday - well they say 7 inches but the drifts were into the foot or two foot range at least. I am more than ready for this so called global warming - bring it on!
James * building snow forts in Alberta *
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 6 (2 Meebo, 4 Rakim)
Issues: With CJ’s help, I updated my firefox and installed flash. The Meebo status problem is gone too. So Meebo is working properly on my computer now.
However, I am having trouble with Rakim. I thought of logging into Rakim using firefox. But firefox cannot play sound and asked me to install Apple QuickTime. My computer actually already had it. But Firefox seemed not knowing that. So I removed QuickTime and installed it again. Firefox still asked me to install it, and was not able to play sound. I don’t have enough time to figure out the reason this shift and will do so later. I was using IE 7.0. It was very unstable and disconnected me in the middle of a conversation tonight. Luckily I gave the student some information for doing further search. After this incident, I managed to switch back to IE 6.0. IE 6.0 was good before and hopefully it is still good.
Project: I was still working on “I would like to explore the literature and research in my field of study…” section. I did not have too much time working on it tonight.
Thank you,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 1
Issues: There were two issues today.
One was with Meebo. There was a strange thing with Meebo. If I set the status of uwlivehelp as “I’m available” by choosing from the list, it showed to the student as away. Then I customized it as “I am available”. It showed to the student exactly as “I am available”. I am not sure if this only happened on my computer or on other computers too.
The other one was with Rakim. A student asked a question through Rakim. However there was no ringing. I was working on the project. When I found it, the student had stayed there for half an hour. I replied to them right away. But they did not respond and logged off. I was using IE. I had no such problems before. I am going to switch to Firefox.
Project: I started “I would like to explore the literature and research in my field of study…” section. I was taking more time to think about the content and examples to use.
Thank you,
Rachel
Calls Today - 4 I think
2 live chat - one I convinced to use the IM and the conversation went so much better so I'm counting that as a Meebo call. The other live chat patron will use the IM next time too. I really like the IM over chat - oh its so so much nicer.
Projects: I worked on the Data library portion - I finished my web search secrets - maybe CJ can use these in conjunction with Rachel's - although she likely did a better job.
Issues - nothing more than my own stupidity - I handled that issue fairly well I think :)
Have a happy Family Day or is that just an Alberta thing?
Things have warmed up here but now it smells like cows
James - pinching his nose in disgust in smelly Alberta
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 1
Issues: No issues today.
Project: I was continuing working on “I would like to learn more about Search Techniques…” section and finished it today. I emailed the finished html files to CJ.
Just for reference between James and me, I am posting the project list from CJ, and marked the two sections I have finished so far and two that I am going to do. James, you can put your initials besides the ones you like to do too.
FINDING INFORMATION
+ I need to find a book…
+ I need to find a book review…
+ I need to find a journal article…
+ I need to find a web source…
+ I need to find statistical information/data…
+ I need to find primary sources or secondary sources…
ASSIGNMENTS & INFORMATION
+ I have to choose a topic for a Research Paper…
+ I have to write a Topic Research Paper…
+ I have to write a Literature Review…
+ I have to cite/reference my sources…
+ I have to do a Research Study and write a Research Paper on it… ADVANCED
EXPLORATION & LEARNING
(XZ_to do) + I would like to explore the literature and research in my field of study…
(XZ_Finished) + I would like to learn more about Search Techniques…
(XZ_Finished) + I would like to learn more about Databases…
(XZ_to do) + Tips and tricks for doing library research…
ASSISTANCE WITH RESEARCH
+ Librarians at your service…
Thank you,
Rachel
Number of calls today: 2
1 RAKIM call and 1 Meebo call. I guess I was the first person to brave the Meebo waters. I must say that I like it much better than RAKIM. No one need fear the IM. I could see it getting difficult if you had 2 or 3 patrons at once - be sure to make use of your status options :) - i.e. busy, away from the computer etc. when that happens.
Issues: a couple actually.
1) I lost the passwords to putty which made for an interesting Meebo call - i wasn't able to identify what email a patron had associated with their barcode - I told them to log into Mycybrary and that should give them off campus access to the databases anyway.
2) When I got a call in RAKIM instead of a ring an error message flashed up saying their was a problem with a plugin in IE. I checked RAKIM on suspicion that the ringer plugin was hooped - and low and behold there was a caller. Now I have had ringer problems before but it was on a different computer and a different browser. So I think this must be a RAKIM issue - I was earlier convinced it was a Firefox or my computer's problem.
I hope CJ that you are double checking to make sure that calls are not being dropped - I can't believe that the plugin that operates the ringer for RAKIM has some personal grudge against me :)
Oh yes, the thought did occur to me as I added people to our Meebo list - it is probably a good idea to check the Meebo page from time to time for requests to be added to our friends list- there is no ring or beep when a request comes through. So if someone is trying to speak with you right away - and they have to wait to get added to the list - you may lose that initial patron's question.
Projects: I worked on searching secrets for the research guide - however - in reading Rachel's blog at the end of my shift I think I may have duplicated some of her work - I guess i had better make sure to read these entries first thing. I usually do - to make sure CJ hasn't left anything for me - but I caught him online this morning and forgot all about the blog.
Well - I'll keep working away at it.
I'm out - ah!!! it is so bitterly cold here - I must remember to find the extension cord for this space heater....
Ciao
James freezing in Alberta
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 3
Issues: Two of the three calls were looking for full-text articles. The students had the
citations, but they did not know where to start searching. I was not able to answer one
of the questions from the third call because I did not have enough time to search. I am
going to keep searching and get back to the student tomorrow.
Project: I was continuing working on “I would like to learn more about Search
Techniques…” section, finished Searching Symbols, and started Subject Searching. I think
it might be better if I email the html files to CJ after all of them are finished for the
whole section. What do you think, CJ?
Thank you,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 1
Issues: No issues today.
Project: I was continuing working on “I would like to learn more about Search Techniques…” section and finished Boolean Operators and Proximity Searching in Searching Symbols. I have emailed the finished html files to CJ.
Thank you,
Rachel
Calls Today: 1 and 2 fakes, lost connections?
Issues: Well, someone logged on and gave me their question then promptly logged off. They logged back on and then off again - It made me wonder if they just didn't like me and were hoping to get someone else on live help. Hopefully it was a software problem and not a me problem :)
Projects: I checked out Meebo today - very awesome - good choice on the IM. I like how simple and powerful it is. I especially like the web based feature. I had six conversations going and it was much more fluid than MSN or Google talk. I think I am now fairly familiar with its features.
I worked a bit on the research guide - finding the full-text of an article - sent CJ screen captures for the primary/secondary sources page.
I hope Meebo picks up the Vref numbers.
I'm out :)
James
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 3
Issues: No issues today. The third call locating a journal article took me a while. The student found a journal article through Google, but they could not find it in our library database system. I finally found the journal in Springer. However, journal “The Chemical Educator” is only available from 1996 to 2002. The article the student was looking for was published in 2004. So I told them to request the article through interlibrary loan.
Project: I finished “I would like to learn more about Databases…” section and emailed the html files to CJ. Then I started “I would like to learn more about Search Techniques” section, and also familiarized myself with Meebo.
Thank you,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 1
Issues: No issues today. The only call I got was to test if LiveHelp works or not.
Project: I was continuing working on “I would like to learn more about Databases…” section. I have two questions left. Tomorrow I will be able to finish it, start a new section, and familiarize myself with Meebo.
Thank you,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 2
Issues: No issues about the library. But there was an issue regarding the cable service I am using. My computer suddenly was disconnected from the Live Help page. After struggling a little while, I finally found out that there were some problems with Shaw cable. Following the instructions given by Shaw staff, I finally reconnected to the web.
Project: I was working on “I would like to learn more about Databases…” section. I explored the Information Search Guide. I have two questions. First, where should I get the information for each question – wherever I can find it? Second, should I list the source of the information? – it looks like I don’t need to, just to make sure.
Thank you,
Rachel
Number of calls 5
Finally some calls! I actually feel like I was useful today. No real issues to report.
I worked on some more stuff for the research guide. CJ you gave me some headings in MSN and then I promptly closed down MSN and lost them - I don't save IMs. Please email them to me and I'll work on them some more next shift I have.
Rachel is working my Saturday shift so good luck next week.
Thanks Rachel :)
Ciao
James
Number of calls today: 0
Where have all the students gone. I am beginning to think that the University of Winnipeg's students are just incredibly information literate or well... we all know the alternative answer.
I worked on a section for the Research Guide today. Finding Primary and Secondary Resources. I also spent some time just exploring the new research guide.
Well, let's hope I get 15 calls tomorrow. I am working the Sunday shift for Rachel as she is at the ALA conference. You'll have to let us know how that went Rachel.
Well, I'm out
James
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 1.
Today was sort of like yesterday, James’ shift. Only one call. A student said that they were not able to find a specific article because they did not know which database would provide it. However, the student did not continue the conversation and logged out.
Issues: No issues.
Project:
I finished the project of checking databases’ subject terms today.
I would say that I have updated some of the databases’ subject terms, not a lot but not very few either. I did not make a record of which databases I have made changes – sorry about this. By checking the Database Maintenance page, I would say about 80. Based on the database description, I either added more subject term, or changed the rank of some terms.
Thanks,
Rachel
Total calls today 0
Yep thats right absolutely nothing. I started to fear that my ringer wasn't working or something so I used a different browser a couple different times to access Live Help - and everything seems to be working just fine.
I put together a document on downloading and installing Trillian for CJ. If I was smart enough to use the dropzone I could get it to him.
I also spent my time just getting familiar with changes at Uwinnipeg and such since I last worked over a month ago - reorienting myself.
Well I hope next week is more lively.
Ciao
James
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 3
Issues: By consulting the map librarian at the U of A, I found a reference book that can answer the question about historical maps from yesterday and emailed the info to the user. The title is “Atlas of the World”, and the call number is “G 1021 A7545 2003”.
Projects: I continued working on the project of checking databases’ subject terms.
The following two databases are identical:
RAM and Recent Advances in Manufacturing (RAM)
Thanks,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 3
Issues: A user was looking for old world and new world maps showing the birthplace of cities:
· Old world: tepe gawra, naqada, harappa, knossos, aksum, jericho, kojdi, phaistos
· Newworld: tikal, la venta, chichen itza
I was not able to help him. I searched the library subject specialists list, but there was not a specialist in maps. So I gave him Sherri Vokey’s contact info. I also asked the user’s email address. If anybody could find the info, please let me know. It would be greatly appreciated. In the meantime, I am searching for it myself.
Projects: I continued working on the project of checking databases’ subject terms.
I found that two groups of databases are identical:
1. MENALIB and Middle East Virtual Library (MENALIB) Periodical Contents
2. NDLTD and Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)
It might be unnecessary to point out this, but just in case.
Thanks,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 4
Issues: No issues. All the questions were straightforward. Two calls were about logging into the Learner and WebCT. I referred them to student-support@learn.uwinnipeg.ca, according to the message on the library’s homepage.
Projects: I was still working on the project of checking databases’ subject terms.
I found that three pairs of databases are identical:
1. IDLS and Internet Data Library Service
2. Institute of Physics Publishing and IOP Electronic Journals
3. Jahrbuch Project (Electronic Research Archive for Mathematics) and Jahrbuch ueber die Fortschritte der Mathematik. One of the names is in English and the other one in German?
I figured that the reason for a database in two or more names might be for users to find them more easily.
Thanks,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 3
Issues:
A student could not log into the database with correct barcode and email address. I tried their info on my computer, It did not work either. I referred the student to the TSC Help Desk.
Projects:
I was till working on the project of checking databases’ subject terms. By now I have finished A – H, plus International Repertory of the Literature of Art, Lexis-Nexis Academic News Search, PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service), Political Science: A SAGE Full-Text Collection, and Web of Science.
This is my last shift for this term. Merry Christmas to everyone!
Thanks,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 3
Issues:
There was not any issue for today. All the three calls were pretty straightforward.
Projects:
Since it was not busy today. I had more time checking the databases’ subject terms and have finished databases A to C.
Thanks,
Rachel
Number of Calls: 4
nothing too exciting today. One student was looking for the density of stomata in two plant species, that was interesting. Unfortunately, they did not stick around long enough for me to really help. He logged off just before I was able to forward the title of a particularly relevant article. Too bad.
I tried to keep busy today exploring unfamiliar databases and the like.
No real issues today - except the last call where I had to clear someones pin - I hadn't done this in a while and I forgot exactly how to go about it - I think I confused the patron a little - I know I confused myself. In the end it seemed to work out.
Well I'm out for the semester - have a wonderful break everyone - Merry Christmas - Happy New Year and all that.
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 7
Issues:
When looking for an article for a student, the citations I got from Academic Search Elite and ProQuest were different.
The citation in Academic Search Elite is
“Dancing and the Dark. By: Acocella, Joan. New Yorker, 12/21/98, Vol. 124 Issue 39, p100, 8p”.
The citation in “ProQuest” is
“Dancing and the dark Acocella, Joan. The New Yorker. New York: Dec 21, 1998. Vol. 74, Iss. 39; p. 100 (8 pages)”.
The one in ProQuest is correct.
Projects:
I was still working on checking the databases’ subject terms.
Thanks,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 3
Issues:
The server was down at noon. So I was kicked out from the chat page. Margaret reported the problem to the library’s technical support. The server was working after about 20 minutes.
Projects:
I was checking the databases’ subject terms. Under “A”, there are three databases that are actually identical. They are Anthropological Index, Anthropological Literature, and Anthropology Plus. I am wondering about the reason.
Thanks,
Rachel
Number of calls today - 4
Issues: Nothing pressing - I'm curious about Refworks - do students fromoff campus not need a group code? I used it today and found I did not need a group code - unfortunately thats what I told my first patron. That first call was actually kind of confusing but it worked out in the end.
I really wish students would not wait till the last minute to do their papers - I guess I might as well wish the earth would stop spinning. My last patron was looking for articles on the genesis of Michif or the Metis language. There is a fair bit out there but interlibrary loan is about the only way to get it.
I posted the RSC down time to Library News as requested. I also fixed all the links on the tips page that I could find needing fixing. I set up a Refworks account and a Furl account with the username livehelp. I have started to populate both with IM related citations and links. We could probably share this account with everyone. I thought about setting up a folder to share in my own Refworks account but I think a communal account may be more helpful. I've created the first folder in Refworks, "Instant Messaging."
I'll email you the passwords CJ and you can distribute them to whomever you feel like - or no one if you feel like :)
Alright, I'm out.
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 4
Issues: A student was asking if the library had Excel installed on the computer. I checked with the Reference Desk and the answer was yes. This student was also wondering if the library staff could show her how to use Excel. Unfortunately the answer was no.
Projects: I kept working on checking the databases’ subjects and have checked six databases. I found that doing it alphabetically is better than by subject. So I switched to do it alphabetically.
Thanks,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 8
Issues:
A student was asking if she could find books about “the appeal of series books/ repetition in children literature, especially in Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew”. She tried the subject search, but not fruitful. I tried too, did not work either. On the “Subject Heading” search page, it says, “Enter the exact Library of Congress Subject Heading. If you're not sure what that is you're better off with a keyword search.” So it looks like the subject search will not work if the user does not know the exact library congress subject heading, which is the case to most users.
I was not helpful to this student because I haven’t done a subject search before in our library’s catalog, which I should. After this student logged off, I kept searching and found the keyword search worked better than subject search.
So, could we say keyword search is better than subject search if we search for a specific subject, yet not knowing the exact LC subject heading?
Projects: I checked eighteen bibliographic items as per CJ’s email and have emailed the results to CJ.
Thanks,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 5
Issues: I was not sure about the following question:
If students put books on hold, would they get notified by phone or by email, or they had to check the availability of the books themselves?
I checked with circulation desk, they said the students would be notified by phone. At U of A, students are notified by email.
Projects: I checked six databases' subjects tonight.
Thanks,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 10
Issues:
1. A student could not place a hold request because she kept getting a message saying that she entered the invalid information. However she was able to log into MyCybrary. Then I helped her place the hold request. It worked. But in her Library System Record, the hold did not show up. About three hours later, I checked again. The hold still was not showing. I am wondering how long it usually takes for a hold to show in the patron’s library system record.
2. I lost a patron during the middle of our chat because I refreshed the page. Sometimes when I sent our message, the message did not show up fast enough. In those cases I usually refreshed the page and the message appeared quickly. But this time after refreshing the page, I left this patron’s session. I could not go back because only seven patrons’ IDs were shown on the page. This patron was the ninth one. The lesson learned is not refreshing the page manually. I feel very sorry about this.
Projects: I was working on reviewing the databases’ subjects again. I reviewed eight databases today.
Thanks,
Rachel
Number of Calls today 10
Much better numbers this week than last - but a new type of torture. At one point I had 4 callers at one time. I managed to work with them all - I only lost one to impatience. Which was really unfortunate on several levels. If they had only waited 10 more seconds I had the answer... oh well.
I can't explain the lost call last week CJ - no idea how that happened. Best make sure I didn't have any today - if I did something serious is up. The ringer is working... and the permanent impression in this chair can atest to the fact that I never leave it... lol.
Issues:
I noticed that a Journal title search for "Death Studies" says the journal is available through academic search elite with a 12 month embargo - however - when you use the "Find Text" link for an article from Death Studies it says the embargo is only 3 months - so which is it 12 or 3?
I had problems accessing articles from Science Direct and Proquest. In both cases it is indicated that we have full text access to the articles but there is not fulltext access. I called the reference desk about it and confirmed that I am not going crazy - the ref desk (sorry I can't remember who was working) sent an email on to the people that should be notified aout this. (with all the details)
The Journal Title search seems to be intermittent - sometimes I can access it and other times I cannot.
A patron wanted to know if she could use her laptop with the projector in room 2C15. I could not find tech specs for university classrooms anywhere - this seems like something that should be available. I eventually refered her to the tech help desk. If anyone knows where we can find this info I'd be glad to know about it.
CJ did you still want me to check all the links on library.uwinnipeg.ca? I started that but wasn't sure if you still wanted it done. I haven't found any broken links yet - but the site seems slower using this address - I'm not sure how that could even be possible - maybe I'm just nuts.
Oh - My email box is getting spammed from [live help] comments on the end of shift reports. Therefore, I've set up a filter to immediately trash anything with the subject [live help]. So if you want to send me an email be sure it doesn't have [live help] in the subject field or it won't make it to me.
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 2
Issues: There was no issue today.
Projects: I was working on reviewing the databases’ subjects. The total of the subject terms is 76. I figured that a good way to review was to go to databases grouped under the same subject. For example, I started with Aboriginal Governance Databases. By checking the description and help in the database (if available), I was able to tell if there were any subjects missing and what they were, and was able to assign relevance as well. I reviewed three databases tonight.
Thanks,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 5
Issues: I could not find this article for the student: “Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture" by Sut Jhally. It is for Mass Communications and Popular Culture (50.3209/6). It is in the course pack. But the student did not have the course pack. This is all the info I have. Could anybody help? I have the student’s email address. I can email to her if we can find it.
Projects: I have checked 11 libraries today. I will email the list to CJ.
Thanks,
Rachel
Calls today: 1
The only call I had was a patron who could not access course reserves. When I could not access them either I called the ref desk. Turns out they were also having problems. I hope they got it worked out.
CJ - after you popped into RAKIM to let me know there was some tasks to do I checked it out. When I did, there was only one entry - the first one. I wrote that article for the library news blog. I didn't catch that I was also supposed to go through the website looking for broken links... Wish I had - It would have given me something to do besides fret over not getting any calls. After that problem with my ringer I've been glued to my computer screen, despite the fact that I know it works now. I've noticed that the blog often lies about when things were posted - Maybe sending me emails or catching me on IM or skype would be a more reliable means of communication? :)
As for IM instead of chat - they are using IM here at the UofA and have given up chat altogether. I just went to a presentation on IM given by Jeff Harder at the Netspeed conference. NAIT also uses IM. And from my own experience IM is much better. As for numbers and keeping records and such - I'll have to go over my notes from Netspeed - but I remember them being fairly good (the numbers that is).
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 1
Projects:
Hi CJ, I am not very clear about the procedure of updating the databases’ subjects. Let’s take Academic Search Elite for example. Should I go to this database’s “Help” page and get the information of what subjects are included in it? Then check what subjects have been assigned to it? If there is something missing, add it? Then, how should I decide the number of the relevance stars?
Thanks!
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 3
Projects:
1. I have checked RefWorks instructions for the following three databases and made changes to two of them:
1) BioOne: Updated. Importing into RefWorks is not automatic. The old instruction said that Importing into RefWorks was automatic. They changed it? I could not find “BioOne’ in the “Import Filter/Data Source” list and have requested it.
2) Sage: Updated. I could not find “Sage in the “Import Filter/Data Source” List and have requested it.
3) CAS: No Changes. It is restricted to campus IP addresses.
2. I also checked and changed course help pages to inactive, except those for Winter 2006. Currently, the total of course help pages that are active is 27.
Thanks!
Rachel
Number of calls today 2
Yep you read right, 2 calls. I was worried that I was missing calls - But the ringer is working again - I had to download another browser (Opera) but I got it working in the end.
So I put two things up on Library News - one on Science Direct and the other on Project Muse's addittion of a couple more journals. The second is really short - but I didn't think much more was needed there.
Are the library's public access computers really still running Windows 98? Thats what it says on About > Information Services > Reserve > Help - under the heading "Printing multiple pages to one sheet of paper."
Thats it for the day.
Number of calls: 7 (excluding James’ trouble shooting calls).
Issues:
1. A student booked a vedio for tomorrow, but her MyCybrary record said it was overdue. I checked with circulation desk and they said she should check at the circulation desk in person during regular hours.
2. When I changed or entered students’ database login info before, it always took half an hour to have the new info work. But today it took more than an hour. I updated the login info for a student and told her to try half an hour later. After 40 or 50 minutes, the student came back because she still could not log in. I told her I was going to check for her and then email to her. But after about another 20 minutes, I tried her login again and it worked. So I emailed to her and explained that it took longer this time for the new data to process.
Lessons learned: next time I will advise the student to wait another half an hour if the new data cannot work after half an hour.
Project:
The following two databases may need to be checked for their Import Filter/Data Source:
For Gale, there is no Gale in Select Import Filter/Data Source. It looks like it should be GALE InfoTrac Web.
For PubMed, I cannot find “PubMed” in Select Import Filter/Data Source.
I don’t have time checking the rest databases for RefWorks Instructions. I will do so this Sunday.
Thanks,
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 2
Project: I have checked the following 10 databases and made changes when needed:
ABC-CLIO: updated
CSA (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts): no changes. “Export to Refworks” button does not work.
EBSCOhost: updated
Gale: updated. In the dropdown list of “Import Filter/Data Source”, there is no “Gale”, but “Gale Infotrac Web” and “Gale RDS Business and Industry”. I selected "Gale Infotrac Web".
ISI: updated
Jstor: updated
OCLC: no changes
Project Muse: no changes
ProQuest: no changes
PubMed: no changes. I cannot find “PubMed” in the dropdown list of “Import Filter/Data Source”.
Issues about RefWorks instructions for databases:
Besides issues regarding each individual databases, I cannot find the HTML editing page for importing instructions.
Thanks!
Rachel
Hello, Hello
Total number of calls (5)
Issues today. Nothing exciting. I had a proxy server call... I had the patron download Firefox when I couldn't get IE's problems worked out.
I was glad to see that I gave the right advice to a person wanting books from CMU (inter library loan them) Rachel had this problem but I hadn't read the blog when that call had come through.
I'm having problems with the ringer - no sound coming through when I get a call - yes, I am using IE. When I first had this problem switching from Firefox to IE fixed it. Not sure what the problem is. now Perhaps next week CJ or someone can help me troubleshoot this. My speakers work for everything else.
So I wrote the news article for Science Direct as requested - wasn't sure how long or detailed to make it - I figured shorter the better. Should I just email that to you CJ in word format or did you want it in HTML or Text or... let me know what to do with it.
Neat feature beyond topic alerts - citation alerts - very cool. So you select a specific article and get notified when it is cited by another article. I really think that is a stellar feature.
Has anyone else been following the conversation on the ILI-L listserv? Can you believe we are still arguing over the term, information literacy?
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 6
Issues: Two of the three calls were regarding access to the database proxy authentication page. Changing IE settings worked in both cases. It is interesting that the instruction is there on the library homepage, but some students just did not notice it.
There were more calls about looking for articles. One student was looking for databases particularly focused on reviews. I don’t know if we have this kind of databases.
Thanks!
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Happy Thanksgiving!
Number of calls: 3
Issues:
The first call was still regarding using IE to search database. The student has followed the instruction and has made changes to his IE. However, the student still could not access databases. I suggested the student to download Firefox. I am wondering if there could be more technical problems associated with IE?
The second call was an interesting one. The student could not access databases and the system told him the login info was wrong. I checked his login info in Putty, and found that one letter in his email address was in upper case instead of in the correct lower case. Reflection: anything could happen with electronic system.
The third call was about a book that is available in CUM Main. I am wondering how interlibrary loan works at. The user can search in six libraries in U of W Library catalogue. Does this mean the interlibrary loan can work between U of W Library and the other five?
Thanks!
Rachel
A slow day today.
3 calls total and all went quickly.
I had no real issues or concerns arise today. I tried to keep busy familiarizing myself with the U of Winnipeg's library.
Happy thanksgiving.
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 1
It was a very slow evening. So I spent time reading the article, checking the library website, and reflecting on my 7 shifts work so far.
With both theories and examples in it, “Communication Strategies for Instant Messaging and Chat Reference Services” is a very helpful article for me. I am going to try these strategies.
I found that the eReserve is a very creative and valuable service. I like it and I believe that students like it too.
Today in the Instructional Strategies for Library and Information Professionals class, we discussed the user’s library anxiety. Three typical concepts are: “(1) students generally feel that their own library-use skills are inadequate while the skills of other students are adequate, (2) the inadequacy is shameful and should be hidden, and (3) the inadequacy would be revealed by asking questions” (Mellon 160). Reflecting on my own experience, I found that I also have the anxiety when I start working in a new library system. I think knowing well about the system and material is probably the best way to lessen the anxiety.
Mellon, Constance A. 1986. Library anxiety: A grounded theory and its development. College & Research Libraries 47 (March): 160-165.
Thanks!
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 7
Issues:
Today two calls were regarding PIN. But I did not realize that I could change PIN for the students until almost the end of my shift. I have one of the student’s email address and barcode. So I deleted the old PIN, emailed to the student and told them that they can reset their PIN. I do not have the other student’s email address. But she did not log off when I had to logg off at the end of my shift. So I left her my email address and asked her to email me her barcode. (The student did email her barcode to me at midnight. So I deleted her PIN and told her that she could create a new PIN. ) My apologies for all the mess. It is all because of my unfamiliarity with clearing a PIN.
Grant’s resolution to off-campus access to databases problem was really helpful. I got one call regarding this problem and it was solved in one second by following Grant’s instruction. I noticed it was also on the library homepage. Thank you CJ for passing on the message.
Thanks!
Rachel
Number of calls - 9
I actually spent most of this shift helping patrons. Most people were looking for journal articles. Two students had problems accessing course reserves - I guess the system is down. At least, that is what I was told by someone at the Circ desk.
Does anyone know where to get a hold of American newspaper articles from the Indian wars period - 1876. Apparently, the Washington Post coverage we have only begins in 1877 (I think that is when the paper started anyway). Any digitization projects out there free to the public? I couldn't find anything through the library catalog for that period. Nothing on microfilm. I managed to find two helpful reference sources for this patron but nothing exciting.
At one point I had four patrons going at the same time - talk about multi tasking.
All in all a good day.
Thursday Evening: 6 calls
Seems like people are looking for articles now. Less questions about PINs and logins.
Issues: There still is a problem with the proxy page that will let people authenticate to our databases. Grant is working on a solution. In the mean time, I'm suggesting people to download Firefox, as the problem only occurs in IE. I also posted this solution to Library News.
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 11
Issues: Students could not log into databases off campus with the correct login info.
When I worked with the first student who could not log into a database, I did not realize that there might be problems with the databases the were using. I checked the student’s login info – all correct. I tried to log in with the student’s info, but it was probably a different database, and it worked. I could not figure out the problem. Then the student left for supper and said they would come back again after supper. I called the Reference Desk for help. Reference Desk told me that there might be problems with a specific database and I should have asked which database the student was trying to access. The student did not come back. The good thing is I have their email address. So I emailed to them and asked which database he had problems with. I also gave the student the Reference Desk’s number.
Then another student called in with the same logging into databases problem. This time I asked which databases. The student told me they were Ebscohost, Academic Search Elite, Eric, and Sports Discus. I tried and had no problems logging into any of them. So I called the Reference Desk again. They did not have problems logging in either. So I suggested the students to turn off firewalls and popup blockers. If it still didn’t work, they could call the Help Desk.
Later Help Desk called in. They said the library proxy server has died and it might be a peering problem with shaw. I don’t know what exactly this means.
By the end of my shift, a student with the same database logging in problem called in. But during the middle of our conversation, the student was able to log in!
I am still not quite sure what the problem is.
Thanks!
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 4
Reflections on this shift:
· The first two calls are both about failure in accessing the cybrary system. I asked the patrons to provide their barcode and checked their records. I found that neither of them had their email addresses in the system. So I updated for them. And I tried later to make sure the changes were working.
· A student noticed that if any data is changed or modified, there is a delay of approximately 30 minutes while data is transferred from the library catalogue to Libproxy Access system, so it is best to wait before making further attempts to log in. (I am learning together with the patrons.) You can only see this message when you fail to login. So it would be nice if we can advise students about this when updating their records.
As to the article “Hurry Up and Wait: Observations and Tips About the Practice of Chat Reference”, I particularly like the following three ideas about dealing with pauses during chat:
· It is a good idea to periodically remind the patron that I am still there by sending “still looking” every couple of minutes. The author called this “placeholder”.
· Stall for time. Instead of sending a “placeholder message”, I can send a neutral question for them to chew on, such as “How are you planning on using this information?”
· Break up responses into single sentences, and the simpler the better. Put (“more …”) at the end of each sentence to indicate that the response will be continuing in the next message.
But I am not sure about the following two suggestions:
· I can take down the patron’s email and answer their question by email if the question seems to be going to take quite a while.
· I can also ask if the patron is near a phone and ask the number and call them if I think the question would be easier to handle over the phone.
Thanks!
Rachel
I completely botched my first 2 of 4 calls. The second caller was looking for the full-text of an article so I looked for the journal title. I was surprised to see that we didn't have the journal available in any format at the U. I told the patron they would need to interlibrary loan the item. After the call was done I realized that I had made a small typo when I searched for the journal. So they'll put it through inter library loan and get the message that hte library already has it. There is one person that will never use Live Help again. If only I had their email address I could write them and send the article as an attachment. Why don't we have their email addresses? I searched the transcript for an email address - called the ref desk and asked if there was anyway to get it - nada.
That brings me to another point - I have access to all sorts of stuff here at the UofA - I was very tempted to send that caller a copy of the article from UofA's databases. Really it would just be like a very fast interlibrary loan - it just wouldn't go through the interlibrary loan department.
Lessons learned today - slow down and take your time with a caller (yet the little experience I have is showing me that the patron doesn't want slow) - especially when you only get 4 or 5 a shift. I should have double checked that search of Journal titles.
The ref services review articles where interesting. After I've digested them a little more maybe I'll have some insightful comments.
The first half of my shift was uneventful. However, I ended up with 5 calls in the end. All of those calls had to do with pin numbers. I think I managed to help everyone. One patron was also looking for an online issue of a journal. I just sent him the link to the page. In retrospect I should have helped him find it on his own. At the time, however, I was dealing with two calls at once and being only my second day was a little high strung about the whole thing.
Well, all and all another good day in the salt mines...
Wait - hold the show - I actually had 6 calls. I tried writing this the last 15 minutes of my shift and got a call as soon as I was done. Finally a call that was not about pin numbers. Now I am really done.
A total of two calls this first shift - both of which occured with CJ looking over my virtual shoulder. Who would have thought that I would ever refer to one of my appendages in such a manner... Oh yes - issues, questions, projects. No real issues, except that I wasn't able to get the link to library tutorials working - I just got an "error page." I also got an error page when trying to link to "Information Literacy Staff" from the Course Help Page. I noticed a few errors in the Virtual Library tour as well.
I spent my time getting familiar with the University of Winnipeg and their library's websites. I feel like I've really been there. I'm glad to be part of the team. I hope there will be a few more questions tomorrow.
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 4
Issues:
1. The first call was about searching for journal titles using the library toolbar. The user could not connect through the toolbar. I tried but actually clicked on “Search Journal Articles” and this link worked. So I told the user the “Search Journal Titles” link worked. However it was not working. Later I found out from CJ that the reason was I did not put anything in the search box. The other links in the toolbar direct the user to the search page even without anything put into the search box, but the “Search Journal Titles” cannot.
2. The third call was asking how to get the tables of contents for all issues of a particular journal published in 2005. It seems that the only way is to look through each individual issue published in that year. I also double-checked with the Reference Desk and they agreed with me.
3. The fourth call was asking if I could extend their account expiry date. The user wanted to access the databases today, but their account already expired. The user said they were going back to school tomorrow with the proof of registration. I referred the user to the Reference Desk because I don’t know how to handle this situation.
Thanks!
Rachel
Hi Everyone,
Number of calls: 2
CJ went through the training with me for about 2 hours from 10am to 12pm (MST) since there were no calls. In the afternoon I got two calls. In between the calls, I reviewed what CJ has shown me in the training and familiarized myself with the U of Winnipeg Library System.
Issues: When I played around in RAKIM, I found that when I clicked on the TSC ClaimID System page pushed by myself, I got the 502 Bad Gateway error. I found out that the reason is the URL is http://https://claimid.uwinnipeg.ca/claimid/ instead of https://claimid.uwinnipeg.ca/claimid/.
Later CJ told me that this page cannot be pushed but can only be sent as plain text.
That’s about it. Thanks!
Rachel
# of calls: 1
Projects: Finished the Find an article section. CJ I have e-mailed you this document.
Issues: I was 20 minutes late starting my shift today because I forgot to turn my clock ahead..duhh! Also I got logged out of RAKIM around 5ish Winnipeg time, but it was only for a minute or two.
This has been a great year, thanks to CJ for the cool projects. If you or Karen or going to CLA conference in Ottawa let me know and we can meet in person. As for the debriefing if we can wait until after April 12 that would be great - my last assignment is due then.
Number of calls-0
Projects- I worked onI need to find a web source and I need to find a primary source today.
I was not sure what to include or exclude in the web sources one, therefore it is a little bit mixed up and incomplete in some places. I also did not go into search strategies as they differ with each search engine. I was also unsure about how many topics like meta search engines, rss feeds, etc. I should cover. As for the primary sources one, I was only able to work on it for the last hour. It is not even a full draft unfortunately, but I thought I would include it anyway.
I am not sure if the links worked properly for you guys. I seem to have trouble uploading word docs to this blog. As a pdf would not be that useful, let me know if they didn't work and I can email the documents to both of you.
Issues- none
CJ and Beth, it was a pleasure working with both of you this year. I learned a lot on my saturdays! Thanks again, you guys. Have a great weekend,
Lina
# of calls: 3
Projects: Working on the "Find articles" section. I will be able to finish this off next week. It's deceptively hard to translate library jargon into student-speak! But by next Sunday I should have to section done and readable.
Issues: None
# of calls-6
Projects- I spent the shift working on the section "I need to find a web source." If you don't mind CJ, I will continue working on it next week. For some reason, it took me long time to figure out how to structure it- in fact, I still am not sure I am on the right track. I will continue to think about it this week and hopefully have a good working draft by next Saturday. (Beth, your section on how to find a book was great by the way!)
Issues:
When a student picks up an ILL from one location, do they need to bring it back to the same place? I had a student who picked up an ILL from CMU and was wondering if they could bring it back to the University of Winnipeg.
I also came across a link from ASK Godot to a full text article in Proquest that was actually not full text. Who do I notify for this type of problem?
That is about it for me. CJ, if you would like me to email you the very rough draft I have so far, I can. I have to warn you though, it is not yet fit for human consumption.
Have a good weekend!
Lina
# of calls: 5
Projects: Finished the "I need to find a book" section. Draft I tried to copy the MSN Help menu style of using [+] to expand topics. I also tried to take a conversational tone and use examples but I'm not sure if I succeeded, I'm sure editing will be necessary. As well I didn't go into too much searching technique because that seemed like it would be covered in other sections [I would like to learn more about search techniques] of the info lit tutorial. But I can add more content if I'm missing something that won't be covered in another section.
Also I was looking at the Concordia University Info Research tutorial and I liked the way they didn't frontload too much content. Most sections have a pop-up window that gives an example, and one that is a little quiz. It has a lot of information, but is not it is not immediately intimidating to the student and you can easily navigate to just one topic. Here's a screenshot
Issues: RAKIM timed out around 6pm, I hope I didn't miss any calls.
# of calls: 4
Projects: Working on the "Find a Book" section content. I should finish it tomorrow. I've tried to follow CJ's example of the MSN help menu.
Issues: None so far
# of call: 1 .. not very busy
Projects: Working on the flow charts.
Issues: None
Number of calls: 10
Projects: Okay. I am a little embarrassed, but I attempted to do a flow chart for students to figure out what type of question they have. Here is my very rough attempt at a flowchart
As you can see, I am new at this game and would welcome any help on this front. As it was very busy today, I haven't had time to refine it aesthetically either (eg. the arrows, boxes, etc.)
Issues: No real issues today except for busier than usual. I had a few students leave before i could get to the "meat" of the question but that's all. CJ, thanks for your comments from last week. They were very helpful.
Lina
# of calls: 4
Projects: Mostly catching up on the IL redesign project. Learning about the viewlet software/guidelines for COPPUL tutorials project for Karen.
Issues: One student I had was looking for articles on Communication Studies curriculum being more practical. I don't think I was very helpful at all. I lost him in ProQuest, didn't even get a chance to suggest Communication Studies Sage database.
Number of calls: 4
Projects: I did some brainstorming for the structure of the info lit tutorial. I looked at the standards that I identified last week and tried to divide the information I thought the student would want to know in sections. Having spent a good part of two hours explaining the difference between a full text and a linked full text database, as well as what the "ask godot" button is and how to search and where to search, etc. I think a glossary of terms on its own, as well as linked to the appropriate sections of the tutorial would be a good thing to have. I also tried to base it on a FAQ sheet- where I tried to pretend I was the student asking the question. Now, I would like to reiterate that this was a brainstorming process and is very rough.It does give an idea of what I am thinking about though- so if it is totally out of left field that would be good to know! (excuse the excessive rhyming) I will post my outline in a blog entry under tasks to do.
Issues: I tried to reset somebody's password today using garfield- it didn't work. I also had two big questions at the same time and was woefully unhelpful with one of them.
Okay. That's about it for me. have a great weekend,
Lina
Number of calls: 3
Projects: Spent some time looking at different tutorials.
http://tilt.lib.utsystem.edu/
Here is an interesting one from Texas.
CJ, I am wondering if the name "information literacy" might not be a hinderance- I know that there is a debate withing the library community about "dumbing down" terminology, but wouldn't it be better if it was called something like- how to find what you are looking for (well, you get my drift.)
http://pilot.library.qut.edu.au/
I like the way this one is divided although it seems to demand a pretty big time commitment from the students- I don't know if that is realistic.
Issues:
None.
Have a great week!
Lina
Number of calls: 5
Projects: Today I mostly worked on the information literacy project (see my two other blog entries) I also checked out the RSS feed for this blog and think I got it set up now!
Issues: Amazingly, no technical issues today! All calls were of a reference nature.
Lina
# of calls: 9
Projects: Worked on creating RSS feed for the learningciti.ca website. Mostly completed this, see blog entry below. Also searched for subject guides that were good, posted comments to Lina's entry on this project about stuff I found.
Issues: Most of my calls were about myUWinnipeg, the server was down, students were panicking. I e-mailed HelpDesk and they weren't sure when they would be able to fix the problem, perhaps only by Monday. Besides that had a question about finding full-text in MLA and making an exception to a must view in library video which was over 800 minutes long (I kid you not). I told the student they should contact Circulation about this, but they would probably be able to make an exception so the person doesn't have to sit for hours in the library.
# of calls: 3
Projects: Please see my novel length blog entry under tasks to do
Issues: Today I had an irate student who had tried the feature on Ebscohost where you log in and Ebsco allows you to save your searches, save results and many other features (very handy actually). She had apparently logged in to save her search but when she went back to it it was gone. I have a feeling that might have missed a step but, as I am not that familiar with the feature, i was wondering if you guys have had any experience with it/or with it malfunctioning? Now that I have been introduced to it though, it seems like a very useful, albeit unpublicised perk of Ebsco.
Another issue is people trying to renew their books online- I saw the note saying that the system is having problems- when students are having problems, do you simply refer them to the circulation desk to renew their books by phone?
I think that is about it. No major system malfunctions today which was very nice!
Have a good weekend,
Lina
Number of calls: 1.. very slow
Projects: DOAJ subjects that Lina added look good to me, so I left that project alone. Created unpublished library news entry for the Library Lookup bookmarklet.. as per Karen's request. Also I will probably be working on a viewlet for Web of Science once Karen can figure out how I can obtain the software, so I started looking at Web of Science in preparation.
Issues: I was logged out of RAKIM a few times during my shift for no reason, not sure why this was happening, getting logged out of RAKIM hasn't been a problem at all for the past few months.
HI Everbody,
# of calls: 2
Projects: I added a few subject headings to the DOAJ Databases. The criteria I used was 70+ journals in a certain field with the majority of the content being in English/French. If you guys feel like this was too strict, please feel free to add more!
Issues: As CJ already knows, I had some technical issues with Rakim today and missed a call because of it. It kept on timing me out for some reason. I also got a call from a distance education student who needed a book sent out to her. If there is some protocol for that kind of request I would like to know about it please, as I didn;t know what to tell her.
That's about it. Have a great weekend!
Lina
Number of VRef calls responded to: 6
Projects you worked on: Seeing what on the LiveHelp staff-only page needs to be updating/fixed
Anything else you'd like to share: Had two questions about the Piano Man's Daughter.. we could barely find anything on that novel. Wasn't sure what else to suggest that would help the student. Tried MLA, CPI.Q, CBCA, EBSCO, ProQuest, Google Scholar
Hi Everybody,
Very slow today. A total of one caller today. I worked on the Britannica feature today and I think it isfinished.
CJ, please have a look at it and tell me what I need to change.
Have a great weekend,
Lina
For your new entries for shift reports, could you please include the following:
This should help me get a sense of how busy it is on the weekends. I can also get this info from the transcripts, but this will provide me with a quick overview!
Thanks,
~CJ
Shift went well but was busy. Had a tech problem accessing a journal which I sent to libsystems to follow-up. Played around with adding categories to blog posts. Figured out Sage instructions, but need to figure out how to edit Import instructions in the staff-only. Still left to do was Britannica news entry, but Lina had already started that so I will leave it to her to finish up next week.