I’ve been working on an assignment for IST608 Research and Statistics which I’ve tied in to my Reference experience. I’m preparing the prospectus and proposal for a study to identify the primary user groups of the Reference Area at the University Library and to understand their use behavior; how often and for what reasons they come.
Originally I had contemplated something in the area of services or resources for Hispanic students. I was sent a really interesting article on sensitivity to language and cultural barriers when providing reference services to international students which seemed like a good lead. I’m sure this would have been an interesting issue for me to explore, however I opted for doing something for which there was an actual need at the University Library.
At this point I’m finding a lot of previous research on general academic library usage, Information Commons models and on the development of local user studies to complement Lib-Qual surveys at academic libraries - it’s not ground-breaking, but it’s eye-opening for me. I’m kind of stuck on how to get an ideal sampling – the library usage studies mostly rely on gate counts – but that's not physically feasible in this case. I’m sure I’ll enjoy designing the survey. The book we’re using in class has a lot of useful information on question formats, selection and wording.
For this assignment I’ve also been reading about other data collections techniques – the above-mentioned article, for example, used observation - and thinking back to a funny, offbeat Norwegian movie I saw last year: Kitchen Stories. This movie takes the method of observation to a new level. In it a design company that’s studying how bachelors make use of their kitchens sends observers into the homes. The observers sit in a sort of umpire’s chair in a corner of the kitchen from which they watch and take notes - and they're expressly forbidden from establshing any communication with their subjects! The entire movie explores the unusual relationship that develops between the observer and the observed – there’s one very funny scene in which the tables are turned and another in which the observee completely stops making use of his kitchen. Wouldn’t want that to happen in a library…
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Thursday, March 01, 2007
I’ve begun working on a new project to develop a series of slides targeted to Hispanic students to create awareness of those Library resources and services that could be useful in their studies and activities. Carol emphasizes that they should not crossover into the Bibliographers’ realm and, interestingly enough, this becomes the most important consideration as I begin to gather my resources.
As I look through other Universities’ and organizations' websites and their resources for Hispanics, I constantly find what are more accurately resources for students of Hispanic and Latin American studies: Hispanic journals and databases, biographical and bibliographical encyclopedias, etc. I find little or nothing on general resources to help Spanish-speaking students get ahead in the academic environment, regardless of what subjects they’re studying.
Thinking of my own experiences as an undergraduate student in the United States, I identify areas where I know I would have appreciated some extra help (at the end of my first semester my department advisor pointed out that I had to work on my writing which was weak and awkward.) The most obvious are general language resources - especially those having to do with writing (vocabulary, grammar etc.) I find those dealing with slang and colloquial expressions would also have been useful to get over the initial ‘culture shock.’ If I had studied today, the technological terminology in English would have boggled my mind, so I also search for some good resources.
It’s a challenge for most students to navigate the catalog and the databases, so I can only imagine how doubly hard it must be for new Spanish-speaking students. Carol indicates that EBSCO has a Spanish-language interface (I had never noticed!) and I find other databases do too and make a list. We find them to be inconsistent, however, – search field terms are only in English and the Help sections are still not available in Spanish. Still, this might be a helpful feature. I’m still not sure if it would be useful to point students to the online search tutorials since these are in English.
I’m also finding Career resources - grants, fellowships for Hispanics, Hispanic-area businesses and people. And for leisure, because it’s always nice to feel connected to one’s roots, I’m thinking of including something about the Latin American Video Collection and some literature.
After this week’s session with Carol at the Reference Desk the project has engendered another phase, which is indentifying Writing resources to include in the Reference Services section of the Library webpage.
As I look through other Universities’ and organizations' websites and their resources for Hispanics, I constantly find what are more accurately resources for students of Hispanic and Latin American studies: Hispanic journals and databases, biographical and bibliographical encyclopedias, etc. I find little or nothing on general resources to help Spanish-speaking students get ahead in the academic environment, regardless of what subjects they’re studying.
Thinking of my own experiences as an undergraduate student in the United States, I identify areas where I know I would have appreciated some extra help (at the end of my first semester my department advisor pointed out that I had to work on my writing which was weak and awkward.) The most obvious are general language resources - especially those having to do with writing (vocabulary, grammar etc.) I find those dealing with slang and colloquial expressions would also have been useful to get over the initial ‘culture shock.’ If I had studied today, the technological terminology in English would have boggled my mind, so I also search for some good resources.
It’s a challenge for most students to navigate the catalog and the databases, so I can only imagine how doubly hard it must be for new Spanish-speaking students. Carol indicates that EBSCO has a Spanish-language interface (I had never noticed!) and I find other databases do too and make a list. We find them to be inconsistent, however, – search field terms are only in English and the Help sections are still not available in Spanish. Still, this might be a helpful feature. I’m still not sure if it would be useful to point students to the online search tutorials since these are in English.
I’m also finding Career resources - grants, fellowships for Hispanics, Hispanic-area businesses and people. And for leisure, because it’s always nice to feel connected to one’s roots, I’m thinking of including something about the Latin American Video Collection and some literature.
After this week’s session with Carol at the Reference Desk the project has engendered another phase, which is indentifying Writing resources to include in the Reference Services section of the Library webpage.
On Slide Shows and Search Strategies
The February 14th blizzard and Carol being out sick on another occasion have kept me away from the Reference Desk and working more on projects.
Up to this point, I’ve been working on slides which run on a plasma screen near the Circulation Desk. The idea of the slide show is to highlight Library resources, services and events (the latter are often campus-wide.) For my President’s Day-themed slides, for example, I created a series of slides featuring print and online resources with information on Presidents, another with suggested subject headings for searching for Presidential information and one more for an exhibit of Presidents’ portraits at the University Art Museum.
I’ve been wondering, however, how much information these should contain to be truly effective (each slide is on the screen for about 5 seconds) and then how is the effectiveness actually determined. Are we expecting patrons to memorize or jot down the resource titles and call numbers on the slides and then go looking for them? It seems unlikely (although we did receive an e-mail which announced that some students had actually been requesting titles they had seen on the slide show.) Generally, I think they’ll serve to create awareness of the existence of resources and services in specific areas. A slide I created with a series of screen shots guiding users on how to access an online biographical encyclopedia was probably too detailed for this medium (unless the Power Point document is made accessible through the website.) I’d like to follow Carol’s suggestion to informally poll patrons by the plasma screen to see if and how they are finding the slides to be useful.
On my time away from the Desk I also attended an orientation on searching in Minerva. Even though I’ve already been through similar versions of this orientation through the internship and classes, I always pick up something new. A useful strategy I made note of this time around was using the Notes field in searches for individual plays and stories included in anthologies as the 500 field oftentimes includes the list of contents. This would have come in handy recently when a student at the Reference Desk was looking for some plays.
The February 14th blizzard and Carol being out sick on another occasion have kept me away from the Reference Desk and working more on projects.
Up to this point, I’ve been working on slides which run on a plasma screen near the Circulation Desk. The idea of the slide show is to highlight Library resources, services and events (the latter are often campus-wide.) For my President’s Day-themed slides, for example, I created a series of slides featuring print and online resources with information on Presidents, another with suggested subject headings for searching for Presidential information and one more for an exhibit of Presidents’ portraits at the University Art Museum.
I’ve been wondering, however, how much information these should contain to be truly effective (each slide is on the screen for about 5 seconds) and then how is the effectiveness actually determined. Are we expecting patrons to memorize or jot down the resource titles and call numbers on the slides and then go looking for them? It seems unlikely (although we did receive an e-mail which announced that some students had actually been requesting titles they had seen on the slide show.) Generally, I think they’ll serve to create awareness of the existence of resources and services in specific areas. A slide I created with a series of screen shots guiding users on how to access an online biographical encyclopedia was probably too detailed for this medium (unless the Power Point document is made accessible through the website.) I’d like to follow Carol’s suggestion to informally poll patrons by the plasma screen to see if and how they are finding the slides to be useful.
On my time away from the Desk I also attended an orientation on searching in Minerva. Even though I’ve already been through similar versions of this orientation through the internship and classes, I always pick up something new. A useful strategy I made note of this time around was using the Notes field in searches for individual plays and stories included in anthologies as the 500 field oftentimes includes the list of contents. This would have come in handy recently when a student at the Reference Desk was looking for some plays.
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