Day 2: Learn more about…
Common sources of stress are unfamiliar services and resources—it’s easy to feel intimidated when you don’t know what you are looking at and a patron is staring down the back of your neck. And once you are intimidated and stressed, it’s hard to focus on the important part of your job—helping the patron.
The solution, however, is not to ignore new tools—they won’t just go away; nor to shut down patrons—they will just go away. Instead, take a few minutes—during a “down” moment, or talk to your manager to schedule learning time—to explore an unfamiliar service.
To get you started, here are two ideas for getting a handle on two “challenging”, yet very important, services provided by PLS:
- OverDrive – Take the web-based Guided Tour
- It’s quick—just 20 minutes, divided into segments that average 2 minutes each
- It’s self directed—view it when you have time, view it as often as necessary, select the segment(s) you need
- It’s free
- It’s also available to the patrons—you don’t have to have all the answers, the tutorial may be all they need
- See the handout
- Databases – Most databases have help pages and resources but the trick is remembering what you did in the heat of the moment.
- Try using the Learn a Database worksheet to focus your exploration
- Select a database that contains articles from magazines, newspapers, or journals. If possible, choose a database that you have used before and with which you feel somewhat comfortable.
- Build your own help file
Share your thoughts! http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=4q1rST6jMQSssEDVNiOemg_3d_3d
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