So Many Choices!

As the semester progresses, I have been working on many little projects to get a feel for the different aspects of reference librarianship. One of the projects that I just finished working on was a collections development project, in which I got to work closer with one of our reference librarians, Kerri. Collection development is an ongoing process, for there are always more books being written and published. [excerpt

Testing the Guide

This past week, I implemented the user test that I had designed for the new History research guide. I enlisted five participants from the history alias, ensuring that I had one participant from each class year so that I could test the spectrum of students here at Gettysburg. I believe that the testing went great! I used a program called Morae, in which two computers are connected over the internet, with one being used by the participant and the other recording the test. The recordings show mouse movements, as well as video and audio recordings of the participant as they move through the test. [excerpt

Categorizing History

Since my last blog post, I have become more familiar with the desk and have begun to answer questions that are more in depth and make use of the reference skills that I have been learning. This week, I have even started working the desk by myself! I was a little nervous at first, but once I had my first patron, I realized that I felt confident in what I had learned in my training and I was able to help! [excerpt

My First Weeks!

I am very excited to work in the Reference Department this semester! I have completed my first two weeks, which I spent training with different members of the Reference staff. I really enjoyed being able to learn from each of them, to see what their strengths were and hearing their pieces of advice. Now that my training is over, I get to start working the reference desk and handling questions on my own! [excerpt

My Last Post!

I cannot believe that this is my last post. It seems like only yesterday that I was writing my first post about how my training for the reference desk was going. This semester has been truly wonderful and I have learned so much. Through the many projects that I have taken part in and my final project that I designed myself, it has been an amazing opportunity. [excerpt

Designing a Test

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been developing a new History Research Guide. I have spent time digging through all of the databases that Musselman Library subscribes to in order to categorize them on the new site. I was hoping to make the site as easy to navigate as possible so that students can easily find the right sources. I finally feel that I have reached a point where the new guide is ready to be tested. [excerpt