Day 9: Reference-in'

September 9, 2016 (Friday), 8:45AM-5:00PM (½ hour lunch)
Hours completed: 7h 45m
Accumulated on-site hours completed: 43h

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Today I shadowed Jen Johnson, Electronic Resources Librarian, as she worked a shift on the Reference Desk.  Jen is an ILEAD USA Ohio graduate. I appreciated her explanations and patience as I asked questions about reference, the State Library, and my project. Nicole joined us, and in between reference questions the three of us talked about the differences between the discovery layer, the local/classic catalog, the OhioLINK central catalog, and some of the electronic resources found within each/either/both/all/none of them. Nicole drew a helpful (and awesome) Venn diagram for me. My key takeaways/rules of thumb were:

• If you're looking to find a whole bunch of information about a topic, and you're not really sure where to start, and you just wanna see everything that's out there, use the discovery layer (which is Ebsco powered). It's not designed to be targeted, although faceted searching can help narrow down results.
• If you pretty much know the title of what you're looking for and you just want to see if the State Library owns it or provides access to it, use the classic/local catalog.
• When you're looking for something more academic in nature or you're looking for something the State Library probably doesn't have, try OhioLINK.