Archives for Reference Question:
August 28th, 2010 Brian Herzog
This was sort of a frustrating question, but in the end was fun - mainly because I get to tag this post “gonzo reference.”
A patron came rushing up to the desk (literally) and said he quickly needed to know John Philip Sousa’s religion. Since time was important, I gave the patron Encyclopedia Britannica and showed him how to find the John Philip Sousa article, while I searched Wikipedia. Neither identified his religion, so the next step was to grab the one Sousa biography we had on the shelf, and the patron looked through the index under “faith,” “religion,” etc., while I kept searching our databases and the internet.
Again, neither of us located anything quickly, except for a quote online attributed to Sousa:
My religion lies in my composition.
That didn’t exactly answer the patron’s question, but he felt Sousa must have meant that, regardless of what religion he was officially, he wasn’t himself a very religious person, and that was good enough for the patron. He thanked me and rushed out.
But I was still surprised that such an simple fact wouldn’t have been more readily available. I decided to keep searching until I found it, and then add the fact to Wikipedia - mainly because I can. I was already in the library’s catalog, so I requested a Sousa biography from another library (John Philip Sousa: American Phenomenon) that seemed likely to have the information.
When it arrived, I started flipping through it, then wondered if this had been scanned into Google Books - turns out, it had. I searched the content of the book for “religion” and found the answer I was looking for at the bottom of page 102.
I then composed a little paragraph and added it to Wikipedia:
Although Freemasonry is an organization influenced by religious beliefs, John Philip Sousa himself was not. He was an Episcopalian, and while tolerant of religious beliefs in general, he personally regarded music as providing more Divine inspiration for people than Sunday sermons.[13] He is also widely quoted saying, “My religion lies in my composition.”[14]
So I was feeling pretty good with myself for tracking down this information and contributing it to Wikipedia - with the logic of, “if you can’t find a reference, make a reference.” But then it occurred to me: if the book I found the information in is in Google Books, why didn’t show up in my initial internet search.
I don’t know if it did then and I just missed it, but now this book, linking directly to page 102, is showing up as the fourth result for a search on “john philips sousa religion.” Hmm. So despite my boasting last week, even information professionals can miss things. Oh, and by the way, he was Episcopalian.
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Posted under Library, Reference Question, Technology | 1 Comment »
August 21st, 2010 Brian Herzog
This question might get me into a little trouble* but it’s a good example of the importance of librarians, so here goes:
The phone rang, and the person on the other end said she was a librarian fresh out of library school, working at elementary school in Colorado, and having trouble locating some poems her teachers wanted for class. She knew the titles and authors, but couldn’t find the actual text in her library or online. She called me because she likes my website and hoped I could help.
My first suggestion was Granger’s Index to poetry - it wasn’t in her collection but was in her local public library. But because online resources are more useful for these long-distance questions, and it was a very quiet afternoon at work, after we hung up I thought I’d try searching for the text myself, too.
The four poems she was looking for were Eating the World, Last Kiss and Statue by Ralph Fletcher, and Spaghetti by Cynthia Rylant. I started by searching for title/author combinations, grouped together with quotes (ie, “ralph fletcher” “eating the world”). I was somewhat surprised that, even after going through the few pages of results, the texts weren’t there.
Then I thought maybe they were scanned as part of the Google Books project, so I clicked the link on each page to switch to searching Google Books (see image above). And if I was surprised at not finding the texts in a regular web search, I was doubly surprised to find they were the first or second result when searching Google Books.
So far, including the phone call, this all took me literally less than ten minutes.
I emailed the four story links to the librarian, and she replied that they were exactly what she needed. So that’s nice.
But I do think this is also a nice example of why librarians remain relevant in the internet age - an inexperienced searcher may not have known to enclose the author names and titles in quotation marks, or may not have known to try the more specialized Google Books search when the first attempt produced no results (keeping in mind that there are also lots of non-Google tools available, too), or may not have recognized the answer even though it was in a form other than what they were expecting (these poems turned out to be short stories).
This is especially true in light of the recent Northwestern University study that shows “digital natives” aren’t actually all that web-savvy. The study’s results seemed to imply that kids expect the internet to present them with the answer to their question, rather than expect to be engaged in the information search and critically evaluate resources themselves.
My favorite quote:
During the study, one of the researchers asked a study participant, “What is this website?” The student answered, “Oh, I don’t know. The first thing that came up.”
If it were someone from the iGeneration searching for these stories, it seems likely they would have stopped after the first search, empty-handed. So, yes, there certainly is, and will be, a need for librarians and experienced information searchers.
*Since I work in a public library, my tax-funded salary is intended to be spent on helping local patrons. It’s hard for me to say “no” when people ask for help, but I do not (and ethically can not) make a habit of helping other librarians with their questions on work time - unless, of course, I’m contacted to check a resource my library owns. There are forums that can help with questions like this, such as
Unshelved Answers, the
PUBLIB mailing list, the
Internet Public Library question form,
Ask Metafilter, and
many others of varying degree of credibility. Something I love about librarianship is the collaborative and cooperative nature of the profession, but I guess there has to be limits, too.
Tags: google, google books, libraries, Library, poem, poems, public, Reference Question, search, searching, stories, story See Also
Posted under Library, Reference Question | 2 Comments »
August 14th, 2010 Brian Herzog
I enjoy being a librarian, and working with the public. But it can be challenging, and sometimes you just need to vent.
No matter what people ask me, I make sure the words that come out of my mouth are helpful and positive - however, those aren’t always the first words that spring to mind.
In the anti-spirit of my post from Thursday, here are some answers I have not given to questions patrons have asked me. You’ve heard of FAQs - now here are some ALUs (”answers left unsaid”):
- Patron: The book isn’t on the shelf, on a cart, or behind the desk - where else could it be?
Answer: In someone else’s home.
- Patron: This computer is loading slowly - should I just sit here and wait?
Answer: You could stand.
- Patron: All the bathrooms are in use, where else can I go?
Answer: There are bushes outside.
- [five computers in a row rebooted while a particular patron was using them because she keeps pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL, after I showed her that CTRL-ALT-DEL reboots computers]
Patron: I’m sure it’s not something I’m doing.
Answer: Hmm, then maybe they just sense danger.
- Patron: The computer said the book I want is “Checked out.” Does that mean it’s checked out?
Answer: No, that’s just our way of deterring patrons who aren’t pushy enough.
- Patron: The museum pass I want is already reserved for the day I want to go - can you cancel that person and give it to me?
Answer: Actually, you don’t need the pass at all - just go to the museum and they’ll let you in free if you tell them the secret code; it’s “I need to plan ahead.”
- [patron on the phone]
Patron: Can you speak up, why are you speaking so softly?
Answer: Because I’m in a library.
- Patron: Can I ask you a question?
Answer: You mean, another one?
- [patron brings in a broken playaway, and I offer to request one from another library or to show him where the book is on the shelf]
Patron: You think I want to *read* this book?
Answer: You’re right, that might be asking too much.
- Patron: I love Michael Savage - do you think he’s got just the best website?
Answer: No, in fact, his site is so bad that one of his fans set up a separate website just to make finding his information easier.
[note: this is from awhile ago, and apparently thesavagearchive.com is no more. But read the little "About" box on the archived version of that site - it's a polite way of saying a site is annoyingly difficult]
Sigh, I hate speaking ill of people who come into the library and ask for help, but I’m sure we’ve all been there. The good news is that questions like the above are few and far between (but they’ll never be few and far between enough).
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Posted under Library, Random, Reference Question | 9 Comments »
August 7th, 2010 Brian Herzog
It’s been a busy week - lots of people on vacation, so we’re both short-staffed and busier than usual - and often I’ve been rushing from one patron to the next without much of a break in between. However, this patron’s question stopped me short:
Patron: Can you show me where to put my UTI?
I was almost convinced she couldn’t possibly mean a “urinary tract infection,” but she immediately turned around and walked off toward the public computers - curiosity (and customer service) got the better of me, so I followed her over.
When we got back to her computer, she pointed at the screen and said,
See, there’s no place for me to type in my web address UTI.
Okay - she meant URL (thank goodness). It’s an easy fix to turn back on the Navigation Toolbar in Firefox:
While doing that, I said something like, “there, now you can type your URL in the box.” When she heard me say “URL,” she replied,
Oh, that’s it, URL. I knew what I said didn’t sound right.
No, it did not.
Tags: browser, firefox, libraries, Library, menu, menus, public, Reference Question, toolbar, toolbars, url, web address See Also
Posted under Library, Reference Question, Technology | 2 Comments »
July 31st, 2010 Brian Herzog
This question wasn’t difficult at all, just surprising. One of our semi-regular patrons, an elderly woman, came over to the desk and asked for help at a computer.
When we got back to where she was working, she explained that she had moved from one end of her retirement complex to the other, and was on the Post Office’s website trying to change her address. She was stuck on the first step - the difference between a “permanent” move and a “temporary” move. She felt, at her age (86), she wanted to get a second opinion on how “permanent” I thought her move was. I know she has a good sense of humor, but I honestly couldn’t tell if she was kidding this time.
We got her through that step, and I went back to the desk. The whole process is only about five screens, but over the course of the next half-hour, she came back twice more to ask for help. It was a busy day so I wasn’t able to stay with her, and usually she’s very good on the computer.
However, the last question stumped us both: they required her type in her credit card number, and were going to charge her $1.00 to change her address.
Well, after a half an hour of frustration, that was the last straw. I know you can do change of addresses at the Post Office for free, so she said she was going to go right over to do it the old-fashioned way, and to give them a piece of her mind.
Initially, I thought this was another annoying example of an online place charging service fees or “internet surcharge” to use their website. I see this a lot buying tickets and things online, and to my mind, it seems like a pure scam - buying online should provide a discount, since it saves them effort.
After the patron left, I went back to the website to see if they mentioned this $1 fee earlier in the process. On the first page, I found a not-too-easy-to-read note at the bottom, saying a valid credit card was required - and that you have to change your address with the credit card company before you can change it with the Post Office. It reads:
Note: A valid credit card and a valid email address are required to complete the Online Change of Address process. For your security, the credit card billing address MUST match the address you are moving from or the address you are moving to (for business moves it must match the address you are moving from). If you are unable to use a credit card and a valid email address, you will have the option to print the Change of Address form and then mail or deliver the printed form to your local post office™.
From this, and from the page where you enter your credit card number, it seems like it’s more of a security feature, to deter random people from changing the address of other people. However, you can still do it for free with no questions asked using the paper form. There has to be a better way to handle things like this, so that security doesn’t impede convenience.
I’ve got to apply this logic the next time we revamp our library website.
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Posted under Library, Reference Question | 3 Comments »
