Time: 9:15am-12:45pm; 7pm-8pm(4.5)
Hours completed (IST): 15.25/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 5/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 20.25/150
Today I observed two BIs and did more work on the collection development project. The first session was with Tammy who was working with an undergraduate English comp class. The professor was looking for more information on databases and locating journal articles so Tammy spent less time on book location. She focused mainly on Academic Search Complete and Discovery@Kent as they provide the broadest nets; however, because this project was about the book Nickel and Dimed and the students already had some topics in mind she was able to show how to locate more specific databases that would be more useful for certain topics. She spent extra time on saving resources in the database and how it allowed students to email themselves articles and citations.
Following the lecture the students were able to spend some time researching and I helped Tammy assist students who had questions or problems. I tried to remain conscious of helping students by reminding them of what Tammy had told them and then help guide them to finding resources themselves. This was different than when I am working on the reference desk and need to simply locate items quickly for a student because it is busy. It was good to be able to slow down and think about how to help them to locate items rather than just retrieving them.
The second session of the day was with Kara and was for a Historian's Craft class. This class is essentially a research methods course for students majoring in history. Students in this class are typically sophomores or juniors because they must first take the four introductory courses in history before registering for this class. As this was a class for more advanced students, Kara spent less time on teaching library basics and instead focused on databases for history and how historians use databases in other subjects. Some of the tips that she imparted included Ebsco's Historical Period Limiter and that using subject headings in a database often returned results that are less useful for historians; however, she also explained that subject headings and controlled vocabulary could be a real powerful tool when searching an OPAC. Kara utilized the LibGuide she created specifically for the course which helped get them used to navigating it and using it as a hub for resources.
Surprisingly, for a history course, the students were mostly passive and asked very few questions. Kara made sure to reiterate how best to contact her. It can be difficult when you have an unresponsive class. I think that covering everything as well as you can, asking the professor if they have any questions or would like you to go over something that you did not, and making sure that each student leaves with your contact information and a good impression is a good way to give them as much as possible and encourage them to contact the library for help in the future.
