What is your understanding of reference materials in the library media center?
My understand of refrence materials is that they are materials that help students find specific information. It may be dictionaries, encyclopedias, books on specific topics, and in general information. The information can be electronic or it can be in books.
Any questions or other comments you have?
Refrence is an area that I am a bit unfamiliar with. I have looked through my refrence section and I know that I need to weed some of the books, but I'm not sure exactly where to go and I don't want to get rid of something that I should be keeping.
(Louis Question) How has our class and this week’s activities effected you in your professional life? Discuss two things that you have learned about this week.
I think discussing some of the different online refrence databases was helpful. A student came up to me this week and said that she had googled how many electoral votes Wisconsin has and all of the sites were banned, so I directed her to Badgerlink. I then went to help another student and she came over about 2 minutes later and said "thanks I found it right away." So onee thing that I learned this week was the art of directing students to our databases. The other thing I took from this week was something Chris talked about which was trying to figure out what students were looking for and directing them to the proper places to go to find resources. I have really worked on that this week.
I felt a little overwhelmed by the number of individuals in our class that have placements in libraries already. I had a simialr experience when I took a second level Polish Language class and felt out of my league. I spoke Polish at home with my parents who immigrated to the States in the 60's. Taking a second level Polish class was not the best idea when I never had any formal language training in Polish. I know this experience will be different though because those of you that do have a position will be able to give us the "real world" application within your libraries.
ReplyDeleteI liked Chris's discussion about conducting the library interview. I know I need to get better at it. But what do you do when a kid comes up to you and asks if you have the book with the yellow duck on the cover?
ReplyDeleteI liked the mention of encyclopeida brittanica online on Dan's blog. I checked it out afterwards and it seems like a great resource. I had never really used it before but it seems very simple to navigate through and straight forward. I can see why students would want to use it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that many (at least in my case as well) have no idea where to find the information. Many students have a surprised look on their face when I asked them if they checked out the LMC website. "What, we the LMC has a website?" It's great when you can direct them and in turn build a relationship with the students.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping that through our class discussions and activities everyone will really begin to examine the reference section so that you can have materials that will really assist your patrons. Both print and online resources are valuable and we as library media specialists need to know when to direct our students to which ones. We will continue to discuss the "Reference Interview" and how valuable the skill of conducting one really is in the library.
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