Blended Services Training Programme

Date: June 1, 2009
Location: Mills Community Room L304

Reference interview:

• 9:30-9:50 – Ann Pearce
• 9:50-10:10 – Jill Bedford
• 10:10-10:30 – Sue Ryan
• 10:30-10:50 – Margit Wessner
• 10:50-11:10 – Alex Erasmi
• 11:10-11:30 – Kim Pickett

11:45-12:15 – Technology assessment – ALL
12:15-12:30 – Break – ALL
12:30-1:15 – Written test – ALL
1:15-2:15 – Lunch break – ALL

Reference interview:

• 2:15-2:35 – Pat Collins
• 2:35-2:55 – Dorothy Sage
• 2:55-3:15 – Julie Willson
• 3:15-3:35 – Linda Cardwell
• 3:35-3:55 – Lynn Sorowka
• 3:55-4:15 – Hope Li

Relax! I realize many of you are anxious about Monday, particularly about the Reference Interview Simulations. Rest assured that Karen and I are human, too. Yes, despite our tough librarian exteriors, we too feel the full range of human emotions!

For the reference simulations, put on your best professional faces (Verbal Judo back to haunt us all) and show us the skills we know you have acquired over the past few months.

Thanks for the hard work and commitment!

The Web is a great resource and we should never underestimate the value of Google. However, there is a lot of material on the web that is inappropriate for scholarly research purposes. Scholarly search engines such as Google Scholar, government information and reputable think tanks, associations and research institutions are all excellent sources of information on the Web. Make yourself comfortable with these Web sources. This will take you a long way to providing reliable scholarly research.

A few things you should know about Monday’s assessment.

1. There will only be two activities to complete in the Technology Unit and not three.
2. All trainees will perform the Written and Technology Unit together but the Reference Interview Unit will be done individually, in front of a computer,  with each person being scheduled a set time.
3. For the Reference Interview Unit you will be graded on:
   a) How well you perform the reference interview
   b) Demonstrating good customer service skills
   c) Information Fluency Skills, that is, how well you demonstrate or use the library website and your understanding of potentially any of the following: citations; the catalogue; electronic articles and article databases.  We will NOT be testing you on how well you know how to search specific databases, but we do need to see that you understand how to locate the appropriate database, instruct patrons on the basics and then perform basic searches.
4. The assessment will take place in the Community Room L304 in Mills Library.
5. All staff will be notified within 48 hours of the assessment of their results.

Other information:

There are three sections to the assessment:
Section One: Written Unit (includes multiple choice questions, matching answers to questions and short answer (complete either question A or B))
Section Two: Technology Unit consisting of two activities
Section Three: Reference Interview Unit consisting of two activities

You will be given the following amount of time to complete each section:

• Reference Interview Unit 9:30 to 11:30 – First 6 Trainees – 15-20 minutes
• Technology Unit 11:45 to 12:15: 30 minutes
• Break: 15 minutes
• Written Unit 12:30 to 1:15: 45 minutes
• Lunch 1:15 to 2:15: 1 hour
• Reference Interview Unit 2:15 to 4:30 – Final 6 Trainees – 15-20 minutes

When I was working at The Toronto Star, we were often asked to find information on events that hadn’t even made it into the information cycle yet. For example, our health reporters came into the library early in 2003 with a tip on a mysterious deadly illness. As news researcher, we were in the business of producing stories for the Web and the newspaper and the challenge we faced was that there was often little or no information out there yet. In this case, we ended up tracking blogs and scanning through death notices. Within a few days SARS (although not called that yet) was being reported about on websites, on radio and television and in newspapers around the world.

Here’s an excercise you may want to try. Run searches on the recent swine flu epidemic and see how far along in the information cycle it has progressed. Compare these results to the SARS outbreatk of 2003 and then the Spanish Flu of 1918.

Everything included in the assessment was covered in the Blended Services Training Programme. Treat the session slides available to you on the Blended Services Training Blog as study notes. Have a friend test you on the content or ask your mentor to review the material with you. Focus on the classes since the training program was renewed at the beginning of February.

Time to time, a patron brings you incomplete or incorrect citation information. Every citation, no matter what style, has certain components that need to be present.

• Author
• Title of the book or article
• Title of the publication (if applicable)
• Place of publication
• Year of publication
• Page numbers cited

Knowing this will help you figure out what might be missing or wrong with a citation. For instance, you can verify the volume or issue number of a journal by looking at other issues from the same year. Citations are a bit like a puzzle. You need all the right pieces and they must fit together in the right order.

Karen and Joan put their heads together and came up with this study sheet. Essentially, they have taken the last 6 months of training and reduced it to a page and a half of key skills. Master these and you will do fine with the assessment.  Happy studying!

This year, Catherine Baird prepared The Strategic Communication and Marketing Plan for the University Library. There are several key messages that apply to public service staff. Here are a few that, if you practice on a regular basis, will make you a better Blended Services staff member:

1. Positive relationships with co-workers are valuable and help us to provide outstanding customer service.
2. Teamwork and communication are critical to our success and the success of the library.
3. Be inquisitive! and ask questions! You are contributing to a culture of organizational learning.

A new search engine is to be launched by Microsoft next week. See:

Microsoft Expected to Show New Search Engine Next Week (from the Wall Street Journal via ResourceShelf)

Keep an eye out for it.