{"id":67104,"date":"2014-04-04T11:30:05","date_gmt":"2014-04-04T16:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=67104"},"modified":"2014-04-04T14:23:39","modified_gmt":"2014-04-04T19:23:39","slug":"getting-friendly-in-the-reference-section","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=67104","title":{"rendered":"Getting Friendly in the Reference Section"},"content":{"rendered":"

by<\/em>\u00a0Shayna Monnens, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ South Dakota<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Getting Friendly in the Reference Section<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Shayna.Monnens.SD\"<\/a>Unless one is a librarian, a student in the past 15 years, or an avid library user, you probably don\u2019t know\u00a0much about electronic resources. What are they? What can they do for the library? What can they do\u00a0for the library patrons? We all know that there is this tab on the library website for resources, but what\u00a0do this mean? What does it do?<\/p>\n

Really, the question should be: what CAN\u2019T these resources do?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Early this year, I had the chance to participate in a state-wide librarian \u201creference challenge\u201d. Over the\u00a010 weeks that the lessons lasted, I learned so much about the resources that our own library offers!\u00a0How did I not know what wonderful resources we had! Databases that were more familiar, such as\u00a0ProQuest and Ancestry, to more obscure, subject specific resources such as CAMIO, were all covered\u00a0during this period.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, I was not a completely terrible librarian. I was familiar with some of them, but for\u00a0the most part they were the more popular, well-used resources, such as EBSCOHost and World Book.\u00a0But, I didn\u2019t use them frequently. It\u2019s just far too easy to answer a patron\u2019s on-the-fly reference question\u00a0by doing a quick Google search. What do you get though? You might get a credible site, with a pedigree\u00a0of respectability behind it, or you might end up with a user contribution and commented site such as\u00a0Answers.Yahoo or Wikipedia. Where is the credibility? The sourcing?<\/p>\n

Sadly, most websites lack that. This is why becoming more familiar and comfortable with library\u00a0electronic resources is so critical to the work we do and the information we share. What is an extra 2\u00a0minutes to access the resource, get the answer and know that it is the CORRECT one?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The best part of this challenge was to play around with some of our new databases. The South Dakota\u00a0State Library just acquired usage to Mango Languages<\/a><\/strong> (by far the COOLEST language learning program\u00a0out there, EVER!) and Chilton Online<\/a><\/strong>, the space saving, no-more-copying-and-oil-spill nightmare that\u00a0was these massive automobile maintenance and repair manuals. The limited shelf space that we have\u00a0has already been invaded by the Chilton\u2019s, and courtesy of Chilton Online, it is unlikely our library will\u00a0purchase any further editions. Why? It\u2019s all there, online! I love when I get to show people the new\u00a0databases. The vast majority of users of our repair and maintenance manuals are men who are looking\u00a0for one page in a 1000 page book. Instead of having to find it in the manual, make a copy of a page that\u00a0may or may not have a questionable stain, I can show them database (sometimes right there on their\u00a0phone too) and how they can access exactly what they want, right there. Print out the page. They walk\u00a0out happy, and we don\u2019t have to worry what might happen to this $100 resource. I LOVE IT!<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t get much of an opportunity to share the databases with others, mainly due to the quickness\u00a0factor of a quick Google search, but I really feel that this needs to be changed. I think libraries (and\u00a0maybe I am blind to the fact that thousands of libraries elsewhere probably already do this) need to\u00a0be proactively reaching out to their patrons and showing what they got! Not just the books on the\u00a0shelves, but the online materials. It\u2019s one thing to show them the lendable e-books, but what about the\u00a0full text books in Gale? We hosted a reference learning session in March in our library that was open\u00a0to the public to learn about the ContentDM resources that the state library offers and a really fun and\u00a0education run-through of both popular and more obscure electronic resources.<\/p>\n

We had 5 people in attendance. Five<\/strong>. Each and every one was a librarian<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Why did the public not attend?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lack of interest; lack of knowledge; and that needs to change.<\/p>\n

We need to get people pumped about this stuff! We need to curb (I cannot say completely cut out) our\u00a0quick Google searches.<\/strong> We need to be going out to the schools and showing the students about World\u00a0Book online and Sirs Discoverer. We need to show them the high-school students and college students\u00a0about all the free test prep materials in Learning Express! They don\u2019t know about these things, and it is\u00a0our responsibility to tell them! These materials are here for the public to use. Let them use it! Inform\u00a0them, teach them, and watch them become better library users.<\/p>\n

Our library doesn\u2019t have nearly the amount of electronic resources that larger institutions have. We\u00a0have limited funds and state access for these databases, but I really feel that I should continue to do my\u00a0part as a librarian to further educate myself on what we offer the patrons. It\u2019s no longer a matter of just\u00a0what libraries offer from their shelves, but the things that go beyond the walls. Print publications get\u00a0more expensive every year, not just in cost, but in the usage and space-eating aspects of them. Updating\u00a0print publications is incredibly expensive, and this is just one more reason why electronic resources are\u00a0so vital to a library\u2019s services.<\/p>\n

So, the next time you have a few minutes to kill, whip out your library card and go play around with the\u00a0electronic resources.<\/strong> You will be amazed at what you will find. Not in the profession yet? Imagine being\u00a0able to blow away an interviewer by your knowledge of what their library offers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Shayna Monnens, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ South Dakota Getting Friendly in the Reference Section Unless one is a librarian, a student in the past 15 years, or an avid library user, you probably don\u2019t know\u00a0much about electronic resources. What are they? What can they do for the library? What can they do\u00a0for the library patrons? We all…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":60864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,3592,3600,5483,5778,6091,3879],"class_list":["post-67104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-inalj-south-dakota","tag-online-resources","tag-reference-resources","tag-reference-section","tag-shayna-monnens"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Shayna.Monnens.SD_.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-hsk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/60864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}