Most of you talk with librarians for specific reasons:
- you need a book purchased
- you can’t get to an online journal article
- you need help finding literature on a topic
- you want the librarian to talk to your class.
Well, what else do we do? We certainly don’t just sit around waiting for a question! To kick off an occasional series about the work we do, here’s what my Monday, September 13th looked like.
I was in my office by 8 am, checked the email, and read my favorite blogs (ACRLog, Scholarly Communication @ Duke, Book of Trogool, Christina’s LIS Rant).
Spent an hour preparing a 1.5 hour library session for WISE, a group of high school women who will work in Hopkins labs this year.
Provided an orientation to the new cognitive science graduate student.
The Scholarly Communication Group met for an hour to continue planning for our participation in Open Access Week. We chose literature for advertising, discussed blog posts and other advertising venues. We also talked about our speaker, Heather Joseph, the executive director of SPARC.
I’m on a search committee for a new e-resources librarian. The committee spent an hour ranking the resumes we had received so far.
In between all that, I answered a few reference questions (in my office and via email) and reviewed lists of books for possible purchase for our collection.