Musings of an Academic Librarian

Are subject terms still of any use to anyone when they are searching online resources?  I know that controlled vocabulary like MESH have their place but I have found the subject terms in a discovery layer like Summon quite useless.  Let's say you are searching for resources on attachment theory.   If you run this search in Summon the subject terms it provides are so broad they are useless, e.g. article, psychology, social sciences, electronic books, education, studies, teaching, research.  Some of them, e.g. article , are not even what you could call subject terms.  The other problem is you cannot "explode" these terms to find sub topics.  So there is no use in using them to refine your search - there are far better ways of doing this like using Boolean's. Subject terms in other databases can be more useful.  Let's look at ABI/INFORM as an example.  I ran the same search again and had a look at the subject terms offered.  While non of them ...

Friendly and helpful with patrons Communication skills: very articulate, excellent writer Good reference interview skills Team player - enjoy a bit of humour, support my team mates well, flexible Knowledgeable, e.g. bibliometrics, document supply, digital libraries, scholarly publishing, collection management, APA 6th, Boolean search, Google Scholar, EndNote, ILS Committed to my professional and personal development Use my initiative Inquiring mind - I read a lot and I like to learn from my more experienced colleagues

The scenario An OT student comes to the desk and says she can't find enough relevant articles on her topic.  She's searched several databases already.  She shows me her search terms: "sensory modulation" AND anxiety. Ideas on how to respond What does sensory modulation mean?  Google it to get a quick understanding or ask the student.  Ask the student if they have used any other synonyms in their search. Go to Ebsco Health Databases (covers CINAHL and MEDLINE). Do the student's search "sensory modulation" AND anxiety or just "sensory modulation." Have a look for key terms in the results for synonyms like "sensation disorders," "affective disorders," "sensory over-responsivity." Re-run the search adding in the synonyms you've found, e.g. "sensory disorders" OR "sensory modulation" AND anxiety. This gives 339 results, far more than the original search. P.S. You could leave ...

PROS: PDA model is cost efficient for the library as opposed to the old model of purchasing monographs in print for "just in case." PDA model makes many more titles available to the patron as opposed to a print-only library collection.  Ordering an eBook from acquisitions is far quicker than ordering a print book. Take up no shelf space, a big plus when shelf space is scarce. Cannot be lost, damaged or stolen - this is a big cost to the library. Patrons can have instant access to the book, especially helpful for distance students. CONS: Cannot interloan eBooks (except chapters if they can be downloaded as a PDF). Patrons often prefer print books - using print has obvious advantages, e.g. don't need to read off a computer screen, easy to photocopy chapters. DRM restrictions on printing a chapter, sharing the book, etc. Licensing restrictions, e.g. only 3 day loan, single user access. Library doesn't own the book, it only has access to it - this raises i...

PROS: Provides citations in APA for each record and exports to EndNote. Provides full text links to articles in journals/databases that user's library subscribes to. Indexes grey literature and open source documents not always found in subscription based academic databases. Not only shows "cited by" for articles in GS but also provides link to citing articles in Web of Science. CONS Sometimes makes parsing errors, e.g. confuses author name with article title. Indexes material that is not considered scholarly, e.g. PPT presentations. Limited advance search options, e.g. cannot do an author search by affiliation. Cannot refine results by subject headings, document type, affiliation, etc. Cannot click on an author in a record to see what else they have written (the exception is when an author has set up a profile in My Citations). Is not very transparent, e.g. how it defines what it considers “scholarly,” what journals/databases are crawled and what metadat...

It seems to me that every library feels like they need to jump on the social media bandwagon.  I wonder though how effective social media is at connecting libraries with patrons and of course marketing the library and all the other wonderful things it is supposed to do for an organization? My library has a twitter account but it has a mere 212 followers and a lot of them are not students.  The library Facebook page only has a few hundred "likes" and "visits."  We have an Instagram account and this currently has 386 followers.  Then there's our YouTube channel.  What are we really trying to achieve here?  Compare the popularity of our social media channels with that of our online subject guides.  For example our subject guide for APA referencing has had 196,720 views so far this year and the law guide 19,749 views.  I know that having a social media presence can be really useful at times.  One example is when there is an IT outage and stud...

My partner tells me how stressful it can be working at a bank and what a competitive world banking is.  She works in business banking and looks after small business owners.  Some of her clients' businesses are doing well, others not so well and they have to resort to laying off staff. It made me realize what a cushy, sheltered world it is working at a university library.  None of us are ever in danger of being made redundant (although my manager was restructured a few years ago).  We don't need to reach targets of any kind.  We don't need to make a profit, in fact we are a loss making enterprise considering all the books that are stolen, never returned or damaged.  We receive money from fines but I'm told the university receives it, not the library. The library gets its share of the university's budget which comes from student fees and money from the government.  I don't know what the library's budget is but last year our total expenditure was $16,...