Reference Interviews

Reference Interviews: A Series of Personal Reference Stories Installment 4, January 31, 2008 for The Reference Librarian Dave Harmeyer Word count: 2,289 [This column is a collection of stories of reference interviews within a diverse number of mediums (chat, phone, face-to-face) sharing one academic librarian’s real dialogues with a host of student patrons. Names, places and events have been changed to protect anonymity.] Virtual in Vegas It was 37 degrees in Las Vegas and my temperature was 101.6. We arrived to our hotel at exactly 7:00 p.m. No one told me it got to be rather chilly in the city of lights at Christmas time. Two months earlier I started booking a flight for the four of us out of southern California to visit relatives back east. But flight choices had dwindled and prices sky rocketed. When I expanded my online search to include airports within 300 miles I got the lamebrain idea we could fly in and out of Las Vegas and save money by staying at a hotel and leaving the car at no additional cost. As is bound to happen, I woke up the morning of our Vegas trek with one of those serious sore throats. My immunities were shot and someone coughed in my face one too many times. I was getting pretty sick with a low grade temperature and trying to control it by popping 400 mgs of Ibuprofen. Covering my virtual reference hours on the trip sounded like a good idea at the time. My hours fell the next day 9:00-11:00 a.m. Our flight didn’t leave until 3:25 p.m. and the hotel provided free Internet service. Bret College’s commitment to satisfying the requirements for our virtual reference hours could be fulfilled on the 6th floor of a Las Vegas hotel allowing unbroken 24/7 access to our students, even around Christmas. I awoke at 7:15 a.m., showered, and munched on a tasty scrambled egg croissant in the hotel’s downstairs restaurant with my wife and two young daughters before packing up and being ready for the airport shuttle pick up at 1:30. Getting connected to the hotel’s Internet service on my office laptop worked the second try. As I struggled with my cold and situated myself for monitoring the online service, my four-year old Vicki came up to me and said. “Daddy, my ear is slow.” “What?” I replied. “What do you mean your ear is slow?” Then, as only a four-year old can do, she carefully picked up my ear thermometer, turned it on, and placed it in her ear. It soon beeped. She removed it from her ear, looked at the digital readout and showed it to me. It displayed “Lo.” Then with sarcastic confidence she said “See, I told you so.”

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My mind went fuzzy. I chuckled. It was now 9:07 a.m. and the ubiquitous single tone from my computer reminded me that my first patron was waiting to come on the screen. I ignored further distractions and plunged into my work, thinking “Now, whose idea was this any way? Oh yeah mine.” I clicked on the patron’s identity, Nancy. Immediately next to her name displayed the small pulsating vertical line of my cursor, representing the only sense in the universe that I, or one of the other 23 librarians monitoring at that moment, would get her. Then, bingo! My screen evolved into Nancy’s question. APA FORMATTING, is all it said. We were chatting live. Without thinking I cleared my throat, straighten up my back and tried to forget about my fever while typing: Librarian: Hi Nency, do you have a reference question? Oops, I’d typed too fast. First impression went out the door. Wasn’t it Dale Carnegie in How to Win Friends and Influence People who said a person’s name was the sweetest sound? I attempted to redeem myself. Librarian: Sorry, Nancy. I waited. A few seconds passed and then. Patron: putting this information in formatting Patron: http:://edu.nursinglink.com Hmm, not even a hint of an informal hi. Her words were like small table morsels swept off by an uncaring hand. But my library school training made my mind stick with a more forgiving (some might think naive) scenario. Perhaps she’s in a hurry and distracted. Let’s see, her query appears to be an APA issue, otherwise known as following the writing style found in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. I quickly brought up another web browser, went to Google, typed “owl apa” and up came an APA style OWL (Online Writing Lab) website. I coped the website’s url and then typed. Librarian: APA. OK I might suggest you look at this web site for APA formatting: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ I quickly followed the url link she’d sent and noticed it was a nursing website. I continued. Librarian: OK, I’m on the nursing web page. Do you need to cite this page as a web source in APA style?

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Due to the lack of response from a patron, the virtual librarian occasionally misses out on the luxury of the interactive question negotiation phase that face-to-face reference interviews have. Lacking question negotiation, the so-called interview becomes part mystery game and part spontaneous intuition to get to the next step. I had to second guess what the patron really needed. I felt that giving a little more information from the APA website might help. So I typed. Librarian: On the site I gave you above, under Reference List: Electronic sources it has the following example for web pages . . . I then simply copied and pasted a few lines from the web page and sent then to Nancy, focusing on the essential parts for citing a web page in a bibliography according to APA. There was still no response. The green dot next to her name had yet to turn the color of red to indicate she had left the session. We were still live. What more could I do, except maybe give the full answer? Well, I wasn’t doing anything else on the 6th floor of a Las Vegas hotel. So, I committed myself to go the extra mile. Librarian: Let me see if I can suggest a proper APA style citation. Studying the nursing web site I noticed it did not have an explicit author. Librarian: This site doesn’t appear to have an author so I’ll use something that looks like a corporate author. Just a moment. She probably doesn’t have a clue what a corporate author is nor care but I wanted her to know that I was still working, and working hard, on her question. Then I wrote. Librarian: How about this: NursingLink. (2007). Nurses are in demand. Retrieved December 22, 2007, from http://edu.nursinglink.com/ Librarian: And the words “Nurses are in demand” would be in italics. Still no response. I’d come to the end of my answer for this question. It seems I get there sooner when in virtual than in other reference mediums. Nevertheless, at this threshold, I’m reminded of the most statistically significant phrases that can clinch a right answer. Librarian: Does that completely answer your question? And added my own spin with. Librarian: Is there anything else? Glad to help if so. I was now thinking I would just end the session and move on when, suddenly, the silence of more than 20 minutes was broken. Patron: Yes. I need a site to help me put information in references form.

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Agh! I felt like Charlie Brown. Maybe her name was really Lucy. Hadn’t she read what I sent? Maybe she was multitasking. This faceless, voiceless experience can be numbing. I waited. Less than three minutes passed and then the final straw came. Patron: Patron ended chat session. Her green dot turned red. Some how I felt that was coming. She had typed an email address at the beginning of her session. Assuming it was correct; I continued the conversation believing she’d received the full transcript in her email. Librarian: The site I gave you above gives APA style for reference lists and should work for you. If not, log back in and feel free to ask another librarian. I closed with the following pre-written script. Librarian: Thank you for using our Ask a Librarian service. If you need any further help, log back in for a new chat session. Goodbye. I set the resolution as answered and logged out of Nancy’s session. I blinked my eyes, took a deep sigh and hunched down in my chair. My instinctive four-year old read my body language as the perfect time to show me her newest piece of word art. “Daddy, daddy, here, read this,” Vicki said as she plopped on my laptop keyboard a piece of hotel stationary with scribbles on it. I played along. “Oh, what’s this?” I pondered. “Hmm, let me see,” as I read, “ipoud is pedo lam doi no do lap odilly Vicki.” And paused before summarizing, “Ah, it sounds like another language.” Vicki, without missing a beat, said, “Yes, it’s Spanish. It’s directions for going to the potty.” “Wow, sweetie, that’s, ah, cute,” I responded as my laptop speaker announced another patron. “Sorry, honey, dad’s got to go.” I immediately clicked on the patron’s name and jumped right in. Her name was Sandy and her question related to information on the child care industry. Librarian: Hi Sandy, I’m reading your question. In just seven seconds there was an answer. Patron: ok Great, she responded! I quickly clicked on her library’s information and found a couple of possible databases. Co-browsing was not possible so I needed to look at resources I

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could access from my library’s databases back home at Bret College. I felt like Sandy might be a more active patron. I intended to get a lot of mileage out of her two letters, “ok,” so I continued. Librarian: I’m on your library’s web site. I suggest you start with College Explore Premier. I have access to it from my library. Let me try your topic and let’s see if we can find a few relevant articles for you. What is your assignment? Do you need scholarly articles and how many? Patron: Any articles will help. I’m doing research on the child care industry and I need information on the market and the industry, the history, trends, competition, strengths and weaknesses. Well, nothing like an easy question. Who cares if I’m in Vegas with a fever? I’m going for broke. Librarian: Oh, then we need to try a business industry database. One moment. Patron: ok, thanks. Librarian: I see your library (like mine) has XYZ/BusInform – one of the best on business and industry information. Let me see what I can find. Patron: ok Librarian: I found that “Child care AND Day care centers” are subject headings and I’m now trying to see if there are narrower sub-topics getting at your question. One moment. Patron: No problem. I appreciate the help. Librarian: There is a subject area called “trends” and I brought up 26 articles. We were on a roll. Patron: ok Patron: Where can I find it? I could see by my search results that most of the articles were not relevant to her topic. Librarian: Hmm, not good. They are very dated (1996 and older). Let me try a different angle to get more of what you need. Just a moment. Patron: ok

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Librarian: While I’m searching why don’t you go to your library’s database and on the left hand side choose XYZ/BusInform, type in “Child care AND Day care centers” and choose subject. I retrieved 348 entries Patron: nice Librarian: Again, most of these are not as relevant as I thought. Let’s try something more productive. In Databases on your library site, choose “Business” next to “Select Subject” Patron: ok, I did that Librarian: The 3rd database is Industry Observe Online which includes “market research reports on 14 industry sectors in 50 global markets.” Patron: ok Librarian: Also, the last database listed is Global Horizon which “generates reports of US global competitors.” Patron: ok will search both databases. We soon hit pay dirt within what some in the profession call the “rhythm of chat” -- when the librarian and patron form a kind of rhythmic communication. Messages dance between computer screens. Magic happens. Librarian: the 3 major childcare companies are: Children’s Wonderland, Inc., La Petite Academy, Inc. and New Horizon Kids Quest, Inc. Patron: yes thank you. Patron: I will look up these companies and get information from them. We continued like this for another 20 minutes, breaking all the rules on normal chat reference duration. In the end she had a rich source of marketing data and I was dead tired. The dance came to an end as our virtual music stopped. I said bye to my partner and closed out the session. My two hour session was now up. My wife had gone out for Chinese bowls of hot noodles, rice, meat and soft drinks. I closed up my laptop when Vicki piped up. “I want to say the prayer,” she demanded. “Ok honey, you can say grace,” I said, appeasing her request.

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As the four of us grabbed each others’ hands in a circle, Vicki closed her eyes and began. “Thank you for the food. Thank you for the sky. Thank you for the world. Thank you for the people. And thank you for the letter of the day,” followed by a few giggles and “amen.” I wondered if Sesame Street knew how eloquently its “letter of the day” had been prayed over that day. I began to slump a little, eating rice and meat as my cold demanded rest. The TV was turned on. A small group of voices softly filled our room on the 6th floor of our Las Vegas hotel . . . “Away in a manger, no crib for his bed. . .” My feverish mind rested within the lullaby’s magic as it reflected on the two virtual patrons and the added context of my daughter’s conversations. How infrequent we allow small children to lead us toward appropriate moments of peace on earth and good will towards human kind. Merry Christmas Las Vegas.

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