Log 12: June 25 Overview of Access Services with Lisa, tour of ILL, Research & Instruction; learning Libguides with Jacob; light shadowing of reference interviews by chat, email, phone, in person
UTEP 9-5pm
Access Services/Reference and Instruction
TiJeat Berry
Intern supervisor: Joy U; Dept. Supervisor: Les Arms/Angela Lucero
Access Services/Research and Instruction Staff:
Harvey, Jennifer. Tessy, Jacob, Lisa, Les, Marissa, Kristen, Debjani, Angela
Access Services
This is my first day in Access Services and I was taken on a tour by Lisa W. where I was shown items, mostly books, that were waiting to be re-shelved. I volunteered to do that work if I had time; my experience with LCC is not as good as DDC so they stated I would shelve the Children's Books if there was time, unfortunately I I was never able to.
#1: Reference
Behind me is the Ready Reference section with books that the librarians use to answer frequent questions. The items include dictionaries, tax books, and some medical books to give basic medical advice, the example used was a spider bite. The determination of what is a frequent question came from telephone reference interviews that spanned decades. Today they still are partaking in telephone reference interviews but are using Google.
During one of the telephone reference interviews I witnessed, a gentleman called to get the following in one phone call: 1) Age of Kamala Harris 2) previous jobs she held 3) population of Ireland 4) percentage of people who attended church in Ireland 4) percentage of people who attended church in Slovenia 5) hours of the library 6) church attendance in Ireland in 1975 and 2020 7) percentage of people who attended church in Croatia 8) percentage of people who attended church in Slovakia 9) books on incest Again, this was all one phone call.
This department is not as busy during the summer as in the normal semesters. So my shadowing was off and on. I got first hand experience in seeing how the librarian staff handles the patrons like in customer service, giving them a smile (if in person) maintain a pleasant tone (in person and on phone), and using friendly language in emails and chats. LibAnswers, are to be answered in at least 24 hours; I recently had an experience with a LibAnswers reference question with a different university and it took them a week to get back to me and even that was simply to say "they weren't able to answer the question".
At the reference desk the students can also check out group study rooms, single study rooms, or the Hub which is a larger room with TVs, and different sitting arrangements. Fines are enacted if the students go over their assigned time, which is 2-3 hours.
#2: Reserves
The professors put in class requests and the library specialist will have the item pulled
and put into the Reserves section. Which is split into departments and and designated by professors last name. The librarian specialists have different relationships with the staff depending on the department. Some have good communication with the professors, while others hardly hear from them or the type of literature they need which includes digital works. The librarians can reach out by phone, email, some have become embedded in the classroom, they send list of orders for input from faculty, catalog of works that can be purchased. One of the reference librarians reviews the course catalogs, list of courses, abstracts, or syllabus; then reaches out to the book vendor to send slips and she purchases the items she thinks will help in the course. The professors request photos, articles, book chapters and even test examples for their students. I learned about the types of skills it takes to know what is being requested by a student who is missing important search criteria which a reference interview would discover such as title, subject, professor name, class they are taking.
They need to Justify database purchases due to their costs. The justification needs to be specific incorporating how many different classes will be able to use it, that the use of the database will be on-going and not just for one semester, and that it can be used by other subjects. If a professors only justification was "it's too help my research" it would most likely not be approved.
The reference librarians come to the reference desk for at least an hour a day to work LibAnswers, Biblio Chat, text messages, or the phone. One of the people who came out for reference time was Harvey Castellano, Associate Library Director, I spoke with him for an hour if there were no questions to answer and learned a what the difference was between the Browsing section, popular books that stay for 2-3 years, fiction, non-fiction, reading for fun might be moved to the main stacks; and the main stacks, academic books for research and to support students and faculty.
There is no medical school only a pre-med program, nursing program, and pharmacy program; there used to be a law librarian but because there is no law school the task has been rolled into the responsibility of other librarians. As a result, these individuals are sure to tell any patron they speak with that "this is not law advice".
When I went to this school I knew there was a Children's Collection and I thought it was for the parents who had to bring their children to the library. One of the librarians in Discovery Services told me that it is largely a teaching collection used for the education department, but in sitting at the reference desk I did see about 2 dozen kids come in, one adult community user check out a book to take to his granddaughter. Access services also helps non-University patrons to get the card that will allow them the services they need: Community User, Alumni etc.
I sat with Jacob and went over how to create a LibGuide. I created one that was due on July 16.
The vendor used is GOBI. Below is the difference between Approval Plan vs. Book Slip:
Approval Plan | Book slip |
GOBI choose subject then selects that she wants to be sent books that have won awards; all the books that fit this criteria will be sent. | Used to be physical slips that the librarian would browse to get info on an item and then order it, these slips are now online |
Meeting on Creating & Saving Reports in ALMA Analytics; I had a hard time following this meeting, and perhaps I shouldn't have gone. But I did get more experience on Canva slides and I also spoke with my Intern supervisor, Joy, about coming in to do more volunteer work on a Weeding project.
I will end by providing an image Below of the PPT created by Joy Urbina for ALMA Analytics Presentation.
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