So, what HAVE I been up to since April? Darned if I know. I know I've been working with students, teaching (talked to a graduate International Marketing class this week), preparing for our poster session next week at the Association of Christian Librarians conference (more on our high school research, and the poster is VERY well done, thanks to Donna!) Transitioning our subject guides to LibGuides. Keeping up with our databases, and reviewing "mine" as they come up for renewal. Had a retreat/strategic planning meeting for our latest reorganization, which is partially triggered by the several early retirements we'll have at the end of the fiscal year. Using up vacation time before the end of June.
I really, REALLY like LibGuides. I treat myself to working in it, when I'm caught up on my other projects. Our goal is to migrate our guides for fall. The business librarians will be meeting in a few weeks to review our business guides, decide who will handle what, and decide which guides can be combined or go away. I've already been looking at the usage and working on some of my guides. I haven't figured out yet how I'll migrate the international business guides: we have eight, which could be trimmed down - but how? Do we need separate international marketing, company, and industry guides? What about country information (used by other disciplines than business)? And the regional guides, which overlap a lot? I'm still pondering this.
In a week, I'm off to the Special Library Association (SLA) conference in New Orleans. I've never been to the city, so I'm looking forward to that, mixed in with my recent dislike of travel and utter confusion about how this conference is organized. Although I've been to SLA more than once, their conference and their online site for it bewilder me. But, onward I go!
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Friday, June 4, 2010
Friday, October 30, 2009
That's my job
Sometimes in the rush of actually doing your job, you don't notice, or have time to savor, the best moments of your job. In my case, the moments that say, "and that's why I became a librarian." I was lucky enough to have two of those moments this week, so I'm taking the time to enjoy them.
On Monday night I talked to an Entrepreneurship class. I was asked to update a case they'd studied this term, and show resources to find information on the industry, where to look for articles, etc. One interesting thing was the different ways that the faculty member (who's in the field) and I talked about what information they would want to find. I used terms as you saw above - about the industry, about companies, about products and markets, etc. Her terminology was more specific - customer segments, industry economics, regulatory issues, etc. (Luckily, we both use the term "competitors!") The variation in the industry that they wanted to explore was "green" - i.e., how to produce the service in an environmentally responsible way (or however you define "green.") One student asked me to do a search on that industry and "green" in one of our subscription databases. Here's my "ah-ha" momement: just as I'm saying that "green" is a broad term, which doesn't have an exact definition, I find that the database has added the subject term "green business." Bless their hearts! You learn something every day in libraryland.
The moment I cherish happened at the reference desk this week. I'd been helping a student find books and book chapters on his topic - first how and what to search, then how to find books in our building. Soon he came back to the desk and said, "I can't find it." (I always try to tell students if they can't find something, to let us know.) I offered to go to the shelves with him, with my usual patter about sometimes the books don't want to be found, etc. We found the book, not quite in the place he'd been looking. He apologized for bothering me, but I said, "no, no, I'm glad to help. And that book looks right on for your topic." I didn't want to embarrass him further, but I wanted to say, "that's what I DO as a librarian. It's my job - every reader, his or her book. And I really do enjoy it!" I didn't say it, but I thought it. And I savor it, because it's my job.
On Monday night I talked to an Entrepreneurship class. I was asked to update a case they'd studied this term, and show resources to find information on the industry, where to look for articles, etc. One interesting thing was the different ways that the faculty member (who's in the field) and I talked about what information they would want to find. I used terms as you saw above - about the industry, about companies, about products and markets, etc. Her terminology was more specific - customer segments, industry economics, regulatory issues, etc. (Luckily, we both use the term "competitors!") The variation in the industry that they wanted to explore was "green" - i.e., how to produce the service in an environmentally responsible way (or however you define "green.") One student asked me to do a search on that industry and "green" in one of our subscription databases. Here's my "ah-ha" momement: just as I'm saying that "green" is a broad term, which doesn't have an exact definition, I find that the database has added the subject term "green business." Bless their hearts! You learn something every day in libraryland.
The moment I cherish happened at the reference desk this week. I'd been helping a student find books and book chapters on his topic - first how and what to search, then how to find books in our building. Soon he came back to the desk and said, "I can't find it." (I always try to tell students if they can't find something, to let us know.) I offered to go to the shelves with him, with my usual patter about sometimes the books don't want to be found, etc. We found the book, not quite in the place he'd been looking. He apologized for bothering me, but I said, "no, no, I'm glad to help. And that book looks right on for your topic." I didn't want to embarrass him further, but I wanted to say, "that's what I DO as a librarian. It's my job - every reader, his or her book. And I really do enjoy it!" I didn't say it, but I thought it. And I savor it, because it's my job.
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