WWPL DFW – Week 2

I did it! This week I was successful at providing face-to-face information (reference) services. Even though I have been successful at providing asynchronous and remote synchronous information services in the fall and winter quarters, I have to admit that I was a quite a bit more nervous about taking on face-to-face mode.

Ok, well, I was a bit of a greenhorn, and I have A LOT to learn, but I did it! Thankfully Liz was nearby to help me out every step of the way. My biggest problem is that I am very unfamiliar with the WWPL collection and where things are located. Even after being given a tour, I have had difficulties.

I have also run up against the shortcomings of the KOHA system. A lady wanted to know if we have “The Help”. She wasn’t able to find it in the catalog by title and she could not remember the author’s name. I also could not find it by title. Fortunately, I had Amazon.com at my fingertips and I was easily able to find out the author’s name. When I ran a KOHA search by author and title, “The Help” came right up. Afterward, just to satisfy my curiosity, I again searched by title and then scrolled through the “hit” list. I finally found it listed at match number 176 on page 6. Ridiculous!

I learned a good lesson from an older gentleman who needed help with his Hotmail login. He was unable to get it to display the login/password boxes. I quickly clicked on a link that brought it up and left him good to go. Afterward, he came up to me, leaned over and said, “Next time you could go a little slower so I can see how you did it.” NOTE TO SELF: Do NOT just do things for people; show them how to do it for themselves! I have a passion for information literacy, and yet it is so easy to forget to teach.

I met with Alexis on Thursday to discuss her ideas and priorities for developing online tutorials. Though it will be one of the last projects I will get to, I now have a good idea of where to go with it.