February 19, 2015 (Thursday)

Time: 1pm-5:30pm (4.5)
Hours completed (IST): 43/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 15/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 58/150

The weather worked against us today several times. All classes before noon were cancelled which meant that the 9:15am BI that was scheduled was scratched from the schedule. Later in the day the university chose to close the campus due to weather but that did not greatly affect anything else that was scheduled. From 1pm-2:30pm I attended a webinar hosted by ohioNET entitled "How Numbers Can Bring the Past to Life: Finding and Using Historical Data". After speaking with Tammy and several other librarians I came to realize that webinars were a vital tool for librarians to learn new skills or be exposed to changes in technology or the profession. I had experience with attending seminars and conferences in person but I had never attended a webinar, so I thought it was important to experience something that will likely become a common thing in my professional life. Tammy agreed with this thought. Though I am not always the biggest fan of online education, this webinar was very well done and I learned a lot about the topic. I had some experience with working with the Census, but I now feel much more comfortable with helping or explaining to patrons how and where to access this data.

I spent much of the rest of the day working on the LibGuides project. I was giving access to the system and read the guides there that laid out the style and content rules for LibGuides at Kent State. Additionally, the previous day I had a student come to the reference desk, where I was working, and was having trouble finding more information about a news article they found online. When I saw the source I quickly identified it as a satirical news item and explained this to the student. This incident made me recall that I had answered this type of request several times since I began working at the library. I discussed the idea of making my LibGuide about satirical news sites on the Internet and Tammy thought it would be a good topic to explore.

At 4:30pm I observed Tammy with an ESL class. Many of the students came late because of the weather and the session ended up being much shorter than what was scheduled. I noticed how the BI "script" needed to be subtly changed in this instance: specifically by speaking more slowly and adding extra explanation to concepts such as synonyms. Further reinforcement about the necessity of good preparation and modeling the presentation to the class.