web reference
...up the creek with too many paddles?
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web reference |
Introduction
Hey it's just the same old stuff, just a new format
The same kinds of resources like newspapers, magazines and books; and the same relationships between those resources
The same timelines; web now, newspapers this week, journals the last month to year, books the last year plus
Our approaches remain the same
The idea is integration of new resources with existing resources
The Reference Interview still the most important thing
..... and the key question is???
We work with 4 general themes:
1) Attitude: Positive, "cool site", they can't find it in text based tools either
2) Technical Competence: Know your environment, be a learner
3) Creativity: Multiple access tools and methods and entry points, what's your patron comfortable with
4) KISS: Keep it Short and Simple, teachable moments, retention and repetition
Let's get to the Game
Establish groups
Identify problem reference resource from introductions. Can be your own too.
Create guide
3 steps, no more, no less
Maximum 10 words per step, 5 words ideal
How did you get there?
Invisible Web
Yeah right <grin>. In print the equivalent resources include libraries, encyclopedias and other non-indexed or stand alone reference tools. The Invisible Web is simply those kinds of tools on the web. Here's some good articles:
What is the Invisible Web
http://websearch.about.com/od/invisibleweb/a/invisible_web.htm
About.com Websearch home
http://websearch.about.com/
Those Dark Hiding Places: The Invisible Web Revealed
http://library.rider.edu/scholarly/rlackie/Invisible/Inv_Web.html
Invisible Web: What it is, Why it exists, How to find it, and Its inherent ambiguity
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/InvisibleWeb.html
The Deep Web
http://library.albany.edu/internet/deepweb.html
The Big Four, General and Specific Tools
1) Search Engines
Search Engines work best for current information. The resources discovered are in many ways the "newspapers" of the web. Be highly distrustful of older information found on the web, check for when it was last updated. As always check the who, what, when, where, and why of found web resources. It's the same evaluative process and standards as applied to print resources.
Search Engine Watch
http://searchenginewatch.com
The latest and greatest about search engines. Scroll down home for links to statistics
Search Engine Showdown
http://searchengineshowdown.com
Current news and background about searching the web.
http://www.google.com
Google is at the moment the hands down winner. There always seems to be new competition but none are really pushing Google aside just yet. It uses a form of citation indexing. For an example try searching "invisible web". Note directory structures and format searching. Plus restricted number of ads which are also subject related. Extra plus a wonderfully clean and easy to use interface.
Ask.com
http://www.ask.com
Formerly AskJeeves. New design with some value added features to compete with Google,s uch as a built in dictionary look up. Marketing heavily.
2) Journal and Newspaper Articles
Newspapers provide recent information for the past week or two, sometimes longer. We use Journals for information from the last month to last year.
Badger Link
http://www.badgerlink.net
There are other resources such as OCLC Firstsearch, Big Chalk and SilverPlatter. Badgerlink is the service that's available to all of us for free. ProQuest for newspapers, and EBSCOhost for journals. In general stay away from the encyclopedia, it's only OK. Best results are from doing keyword searches in the aggregate databases. The specialized databases can be vocabulary restrictive, increasing the complexity for using them effectively.
3) eBooks
These are good for information older than a year, and of course for all manner of historical information.
netLibrary
http://www.netlibrary.com
There are other sources available, such as the Gutenberg Project, UVA eTexts Center, Phoenix-Library and Books 24x7. But netLibrary is available to all of us pre-paid and contains both current books and public domain books collections.
There are some specific reference titles which are part of our collection, as well as titles that we commonly use in a reference environment. As the collection grows more will be added. You can also search for common categories of materials to find more specific reference works (romance fiction). The more powerful approach is to use the Full Text search to find specific information within all the books (for an example try "biomes").
4) Library Portals
Know your environment, you can even help set your environment. Here's a number of very high quality directories, or portals, developed by librarians for librarians.
Librarians Index to the Internet
http://lii.org
The best of the best
Internet Scout Project
http://scout.wisc.edu
The best of the best
Bartleby
http://www.bartleby.com
The best free set of web reference tools
Internet Public Library
http://www.ipl.org
The orginal virtual library that just keeps getting better
Educators Reference Desk
http://www.eduref.org
A really good directory site
Oshkosh Public Library Internet Links
http://www.oshkoshpubliclibrary.org/pages/internetguides/guide_index.html
The neighbors too.
Make your own. A single page with no more than 5-10 links to those tools you use the most. Put it on your hard disk and set it as your reference desk PC default home page. Like this page for example. You can also create a set of bookmarks to copy and use on each of the reference department PCs.
Conclusion
Don't get your undies in a bunch. It's all the same stuff in a new wrapper.
So back to the game, how do you do think you did, and why?
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Mark Beatty Web Site
http://lepton.wils.wisc.edu/markpage |
