I keep forgetting about the Internet! (Or rather, the little pieces of it I’ve staked out for my personal use..)
A quick run-down of interesting questions since I last posted:
- January 5th, 2009 (this one slipped through)
Searching for information/books/articles on the inventor of one of the first pressure suits. Preliminary work by other librarians had the name – “Eugene Chertanovsky” – but searches were not getting far. Further search revealed multiple spellings of the subject, including “Eugene Chertanovskaja”, “Evgeniy Chertanovskiy”, and “E. E. Chertovsky”. Variants revealed some sources, including a book on space exploration in the building and a Google Book in its entirety with a full paragraph on the inventor of the Ch-1 pressure suit (knowing the name of the suit ended up being how I found the alternate spellings).
Conclusion: WIN. Translations of Cyrillic spellings are tricky; always better to have more to work from. - January 7th, 2009 (also slipped through.. mostly because it’s just a brief anecdote)
A patron was having trouble finding a topic and I showed her how I would go about doing the search on a patron-interface catalog (as opposed to our super-user catalog interfaces). She asked, in a joking tone, if I went to school to learn that. I kind of paused and said, yes, I have been trained in how to do information searches. I mean, we do have library school – what do people think we learn there? Memorizing the Dewey Decimal System and how to shush..? \:| (Then again, I still have people say to me “you have to go to school to be a librarian??” Shocking, isn’t it…) - Sometime last month
A young man came in wanting information on Eastern Canada during the 11th through 13th centuries… We could find general information on tribes (on the Internet) that were spread across the region prior to that time period, specific information about tribes and Viking incursions in Central and Western Canada during the tail end of that time period, information about all regions of Canada starting in the 17th and 18th century, and information about modern lives of native peoples from Canada and the Northern U.S. … But we’re a small urban library in the U.S. – why would anyone expect us to have stuff on pre-recorded history Canada..? Oh, and he needed it for a report due within the next couple of days, so interlibrary loans were no use.
Conclusion: An incredibly predictable FAIL. I think he said he would ask if he could change his time period/region (I’m not entirely sure, but I think he selected the starting set himself.. ?:/ ) - Sometime this past week (Thursday..?)
A patron wanted information on New York, specifically the aspects of it that made it unique as compared to other cities around the country. This led to a discussion of what features would make New York different from other cities, like Chicago, L.A., etc. We ended up deciding the city’s general diversity, proximity to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, the presence of the United Nations, island/burroughs structure, and subway system all constituted unique facets, whereas Tammany Hall (and corruption), buildings in general, and their educational system did not.
Conclusion: WIN. We got him a number of books and got some focus for his report. Plus, interesting conversation on the evolution of cities.
