A healthy start to Reference

Carol Ann, my supervisor, energetically wiped down all surfaces of the Reference desk with antibacterial wipes while she warned me of the many bacteria we must protect ourselves from at the desk (at which point I decided to keep my all too recent bout with gastroenteritis to myself.)

This was the first day of the Reference portion of my internship: a 1 to 5 Saturday shift at the Reference desk. (The schedule will change pretty much every week, according to my supervisor’s shifts at the reference desk. Generally I’ll be working a varying combination of Monday afternoons, Wednesday mornings and a few Monday nights.)

The semester had just begun, which meant students were still successfully fighting off the impulse to come to the library, so I used the time to familiarize myself with the ready reference materials by the desk, the reference website and the printed subject guides in the reference area. I was looking through the literature review databases when Carol Anne suggested I compare the Gale print and online resources. I did and interestingly found the online version lacked many important reviews contained in the print resource. I wrote up my findings and e-mailed them to the Reference Bibliographer, Jane Kessler.

I was also able to get started on the ‘projects’ part of the internship and began by working on some PowerPoint slides for the slide show playing on the plasma screen by the Circulation desk. The slides were for the Writer’s Institute author lectures.

A few patrons did approach the desk and they made me feel jealous of the stapler, since its services seemed to be in higher demand. Those that had questions that first day mainly needed help with technological troubleshooting - problems with the uniprint, slow printing pdf files and such.

Still, it was a very satisfying start. I found I very much like being in contact with the public, felt good about the variety of tasks the job entails as well as the handling of all types of information.