Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Standing in front of CIS 110

It makes me nervous to stand in front of a class and blog.
Folks seem pretty bored already.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

A surprisingly busy Wednesday

*More printer questions
*Anatomy of pregnant women or questions about midwifery.
*A misplaced Atlas
*Real email reference questions. Found the article under "Mise en evidence d'une tectonique majeure du Jurassique superieur (phase nevadienne) dans le Nord-Est de l'Oregon (secteur d'Huntington)" but not under its translated title, "Evidence for a major tectonic episode in the Upper Jurassic (Nevadan Phase) of the Huntington area."
*Supralaryngal vocal sounds that birds make.
*A misplaced, misfilled ILL.
and then a whole bunch of nothing.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Tuesday at the desk

Pretty slow today
*Printer issues abound. Do we have a color printer? Do we have more paper for the printer?
ho. hum.
*Found our limited run of a journal that is now mostly at OIMB. Have to remember that Sci Desk can also mean that back room.

We have more and more new furniture. It looks pretty nice. We have a very cool table in that back room. Looks like a benzene ring. How fitting.

Oh. And, I wrote down the time for the class that I've been preparing for incorrectly. I'm all dressed up and no place to go. Next week, I get to try again. Thank goodness for 2nd chances.

Monday, November 21, 2005

Monday November 21, 2005

*Someone looking for a Geological Society of America. Bulletin from the 1930s.
*A person trying to get into SciFinder Scholar. Showed them Inspec, as a start.

Friday, November 18, 2005

Friday, November 18, 2005

* Several more iron oxalate questions, must be due soon.
* Recently folks have been interested in birds of all kinds, like ducks and crows
* Then there was the behavior of squirrels and humans. Turns out searching for squirrel under their latin names was the key to getting decent results.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

chemistry, et al.

*when using APA for citations, please note that et al. is used after the 6th author.
*What is the viscosity of sorbitol at room temperature? [Couldn't find this, but did know where to look for organic compounds and what one was!]
*In excel, do I get the words to not spill out of the cell and then get cut off? [Years of excel contortions helped answer that one easily!]

Monday, November 14, 2005

Monday, November 14, 2005

I was staffing both L-net, the statewide virtual reference desk and the real one here in Science. Questions have been intermixed to protect the innocent.

Looking into getting a concealed weapon permit. Please send form or other address to find out more.

An article on carpal tunnel syndrome from 2003.

Lots of annoying questions about the revolutionary war.

What kinds of plants are in the ocean?

Lost cards, books from other libraries, geneaology. It was pretty busy....

Friday, November 11, 2005

iron oxalate

The question about iron oxalate has come up for Victoria and Dean.

I found the following article for several patrons:
"Doping of emeraldine base with the monovalent bridging iron oxalate ions and their transformation into nanostructured conducting polymer composites" in Acta Materialia

Victoria, who was able to log onto SciFinder (and knows how to search like no one's business) found something different:
Olmsted, John, III. Preparation and analysis of potassium tris(oxalato)ferrate(III) trihydrate: a general chemistry experiment. Journal of Chemical Education (1984), 61(12), 1098-9. CODEN: JCEDA8 ISSN:0021-9584. CAN 102:45133 AN 1985:45133 CAPLUS

This one too, but it was less helpful
Dallinger, Richard F. Synthesis and characterization of potassium tris(oxalato)ferrate(III) trihydrate: a spectrophotometric method of iron analysis. Journal of Chemical Education (1995), 72(10), 936. CODEN: JCEDA8 ISSN:0021-9584. CAN 123:313034 AN 1995:881184 CAPLUS

Other questions today have included
*Why is the photocopying machine only getting half a page?
*How do I search inside these journals?
*What does shelved by title mean?
*Do we have journal X (we share it now with OSU, but older copies are in Knight)

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Questions from the desk

Karen Munro points out the following in her Nov 7, 05 posting:
"Interestingly, our library just issued an annual report profiling the reference services here in Knight Library. They used real, live reference questions submitted by us (the librarians) as examples of the kind of work we do here. Some of those questions were taken from this very blog! I guess that more or less settles the issue of how we feel about making patrons' requests public."

So, here are some questions from the past few days:
*How do I find this journal? Asked in a variety of ways, shapes and forms.
*Science Direct doesn't let me register. What should I do? [GRRRR. Isn't there some way to let patrons know that they have to sign in from www.sciencedirect.com?]
*In our chemistry lab on the use and preparation of iron oxalate we have an equation that we have to balance. Our lab TA said that the correct answer was in an article in the Science Library. We've tried Google Scholar and some of the NLM sites and we can't find it. [I tried Sci Finder Scholar, and couldn't get on, of course. But, INSPEC worked. Go figure. Those wacky physicists.]
*How do I print? Can I print later?
*Where is the photocopy machine? Where are the other photocopy machines, as there is a line for the single working one.
*I'm an artist and I want to understand the science of light (and color, too). [The call number range starts QC355....]