EBSCO Issues on Ref. Computer

I've been having problems connecting to ANY Ebsco database from the reference computer today. No matter which I try, they all refuse to load - they get stalled while talking to the Ebsco servers, or something like that.

This appears to be just on the reference desktop - I tried from a different computer and had no problems, and Anna didn't have any issues from home, wither. Just wanted to let you all know in case it's still happening tomorrow.

I'm beginning to think I'm cursed with regards to computers this week...

Health Care

I've assisted five students and Jay helped another this afternoon with scanning their health insurance cards. I think they need to have copies to receive flu shots. Keep your eyes peeled for people looking somewhat confused/lost. Some have tried using the traditional image scanners.

Rivers assignment

I had two FTS students in Laura Triplett's class come in asking for books about rivers Wednesday morning. It seemed, on further investigation, that articles would be okay, which is a good thing because we don't have a huge number of books exclusively about particular rivers. One went away happily looking at fairly technical articles in Academic Search Premier on geology-type topics related to the Congo River. The other found an essay in a book about historical/social aspects of the Tiber river. I hope they know what they're doing, because I didn't see an actual assignment and am not sure if they can pick any aspect of a river. They each had different ideas, though seemed not too panicked about meeting particular expectations.

World Economy Assignment

I've had 3 students so far this afternoon working on an assignment for a World Economy course (I forgot to get the actual course title/instructor). The students are required to find at least 1 recent book and 1 journal that deal with the economy of their country - I think they're actually supposed to have 3. It looks like the professor wants them to find a journal they can follow for the rest of the semester, so they're supposed to find a journal title, not a specific article. For instance, I just helped someone find the Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy to cover Thailand. Titles like the Wall Street Journal aren't specific enough to count as their primary journal/magazine, unfortunately! They're also supposed to write the information down in "bibliographic documentation", which is confusing since they're not citing a specific article, just the journal. 

So far the best way I've found to do this is to use a database like Business Source Premier and search as if I'm looking for an article, and then look through the results for a good journal title. From what I can tell the books don't have to be just on the economy, as long as they're a recent publication on the country (and hopefully they mention the economy in there somewhere).

Musings

I so much more enjoy being at the Reference Desk when the library is busy and there are people to help.

The computer tower has a wonky power button so when you are unable to get it started fiddle with the blue button.

Not sure if I like the out-of-the-box reference desks sold by various companies. Strangely enough, the desks look like out-of-the-box reference desks.

Does anyone go right into advanced search when looking for information packages in our catalog? I don't as a first choice, but it works first-rate when I do.

Who compiles the use statistics for patron activity at this desk? I remember seeing a report once, but that was a couple years ago. The archives keeps use statistics if anyone is interested.

Reviving the Reference Blog!!

It has been a long time since we used this blog, but let's see if this will give us a way to communicate about assignments, frequent issues, and possible solutions. I think it may be particularly useful as we fold our reference peer tutors into our ranks. I'm first going to make sure all the librarians can join in, and then if we feel comfortable with it, I'll invite the students and see if they would like to post on occasion, too.

Today I had a question: how to limit a Google search to government web sites. A little digging, and it turned out they particularly wanted sites from the state of California. So I used my skillz and showed them how to add site:.ca.gov to a Google search and voila.  Though honestly it looks as if California's legislature's website was designed in 1993.

interlibrary loan puzzle

I just tried to help someone ILL a book that is missing. It's volume two of a two-volume thing. MnPALS told me I couldn't. I asked Sonja if she knew what was up. She tried checking out volume one; once vol. one was checked out, MnPALS was happy and said I could borrow vol. two from another library. As if to say "you've got a volume, what's yer problem?"

Anyway - thought I'd mention it in case you run into the same thing. If it's a 45-volume work, this will become quite tiresome.

An aside - while untangling this I helped as student find a print journal for the first time. He was a senior.