First Day Working the Reference Desk: 2/23 9am-5pm

Today was a very interesting day, as I worked the reference desk for the first time. Initially, I had planned to shadow the desk with either Cynthia or Kristen (the two reference librarians with whom I work most closely) before working the desk solo. However, due to a number of illnesses, I was asked to work the reference desk for the entirety of today. While I was a bit nervous, I was pretty comfortable I could reach out to another librarian for help as needed. Additionally, since it was Friday, there likely would not be too many reference requests to field. Ultimately, I worked the desk for its full Friday hours without crisis. In that time, I handled a few simple requests and worked on one longer-term, and more involved, faculty request.

The faculty request I spent the most time addressing was a research inquiry. The professor wanted to know how several dictionary terms had changed throughout history. More specifically, they wished to know when a certain context began being incorporated in common dictionary entries. This was a bit challenging as this required access to a wide number of dictionaries and their previous editions. While some academic libraries contain many dictionaries and, in many editions, the Dee J. Kelly Law Library does not. As such, I spent a great deal of time looking at university database offerings or looking at more specific legal dictionaries that were on hand. Ultimately, this project was not solved in one day, but I believe I made progress and will likely revisit it next week.

Photo Description: This is a photo of some the library's dictionaries I reviewed for our faculty research request. While we had a few other dictionaries on hand, our most comprehensive selection of editions was for the Webster's New College Dictionary. Unfortunately, this ended up being a dead end for the research quest, but it was nice to see we had so many older copies of this resource.

Total Hours: 8

Name: Madeleine Ball

Site Supervisor: Lisa Goodman