[Askalibrarianqa] Final votes for September chats

[Pat Barbier]

Hi Everyone,
   I think discussion of the chats and what makes for best practices in doing electronic reference is good. However, I think there should be room given for differences of professional opinion. Remember we have been trying to encourage librarians who are not on the workgroup to nominate transcripts (their own and their colleagues). Some are somewhat intimidated by this process. In fact, if we had gotten enough nominations from the whole group, the workgroup would mainly have had the task of voting on which were the most exemplary.
  
  It is true that sending a link to a patron is usually "good practice." However, the librarian did find the specific information from a credible government website (gave an accurate answer) and also had a good rapport with the student fulfilling other criteria. So I'm seeing some strong positives in the transcript, also.
 
  Since the patron was a Middle School Student, it would be important to find a website on the student's reading level that answers the specific question.  I did a search myself on the student's topic using Yahooligans and did not get very good results. It did not look like the kind of search I would have wanted to be co-browsing for either as I found myself not finding what he was looking for right away. 
 
   Pointing out the need to send the website is an interesting point.What do the rest of the workgroup members think?
 
   Issues with how much "homework help" should be given I'll leave to Diana and Jennifer.
 
Pat

________________________________

From: askalibrarianqa-bounces at lists.tblc.org on behalf of Nicole Heintzelman
Sent: Thu 11/8/2007 7:25 PM
To: Pat Barbier; askalibrarianqa at lists.tblc.org
Subject: [Askalibrarianqa] Final votes for September chats



Hello everyone.  Generally I send my chat votes directly to Pat.  This time, however, I am addressing the committee in order to highlight a chat I believe should not have been nominated in the first place.  First of all, Pat, here are my final votes:

 

Brief Chat: Jill S.

Detailed Chat: Laura Minnich 

Teaching: Deborah T.

 

The chat I question is a "detailed" from Brian Jaudon of Tampa-Hillsborough. http://www.askalibrarian.org/collaborative/vrl_xscriptdetails.asp?id=68865&process <http://www.askalibrarian.org/collaborative/vrl_xscriptdetails.asp?id=68865&process> =

The first two questions submitted were clearly homework questions:
"Does atmospheric pressure increase or decrease the formation of clouds?"

"How are clouds nucleated by particles in the atmosphere"... and Brian clearly answered them rotely (although he did supply the resource, thank goodness).   Brian should have instead supplied the link to National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office for the student to visit himself.  

 

This is actually not the first time Brian has supplied such rote answers.  Check out http://www.askalibrarian.org/collaborative/vrl_xscriptdetails.asp?id=68121&process=  

Lest it appear that I am picking on Brian specifically, that transcript was actually nominated in September as an exemplary August chat!   I strongly believe that Ask a Librarian is not a service that answers homework questions but a service that educates students in finding and interpreting information.   Laura Minnich's chat, which I voted Best Detailed, is an exemplary model of a librarian providing appropriate resources for the student to read and analyze.  I sincerely hope Brian's chat is the last of its kind that is nominated.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

 

Sincerely,

Nicole Heintzelman

Winter Park Public Library

 

 

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