The Springy Share

Tales From the Co-Op: July Exchanges

By Corinne on July 29, 2025

Tales From the Co-Op: July Exchanges
5:59

Settle in for this month's thrilling installment of Tales From the Co-Op! If you missed our last post in this series, give it a read here: June Exchanges.

Your patrons and students can experience the joys and delights of uninterrupted reference chat help when you sign on for the 24/7 Chat Cooperative, our round-the-clock chat service staffed by excellent MLS-degreed librarians.

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Whether you're looking for an extra dash of chat coverage during holidays, after hours, or when your local librarians are swamped with other questions, the 24/7 Chat Co-Op is your solution. One patron described the Co-Op as "incredibly helpful, reduces stress in searching, and teaches you tips and tricks toward navigating the library's website"!

To showcase the quality of this service, today we're highlighting a few stellar interactions with Co-Op librarians. We care about privacy as much as you do, so we've taken care to remove any identifiable details from these transcripts – plus, now the patrons and librarians have some fun new aliases!


Curious Queries

When patrons are feeling blue, orange you glad a librarian is available to lend a hand? πŸ’œ A few clarifying questions from Leah Librarian helped shine a light on Patricia's colorful topic.

April 11, 2025 | 8:15 pm

Patricia Patron: I am trying to find articles about how the color violet affects the psyche for a painting assignment but the teacher wants us to refrain from using .com sites. It's proven to be extremely difficult so I am hoping that you guys had articles on color theory or something that can help

Leah Librarian: Hi, Patricia! I'm happy to help. πŸ™‚
Leah Librarian: Do your sources need to meet any other requirements? Be peer-reviewed? Be published within a certain time frame (the last 5 or 10 years, as an example)? Be a specific type (book, article, etc.)?

Patricia Patron: She never said anything like that just that we should try to stay away from .com sites

Leah Librarian: Okay.
Leah Librarian: Would you please tell me a little more about your research topic so that I may best help you? Would you explain what you mean by the psyche? Do you mean how it makes people feel? Think? Something else?

Patricia Patron: Yeah, we are making a powerpoint about how a specific color makes people feel when they see it in a painting. The color I picked was violet so I have to find info on how violet makes people feel when they look at it.

Leah Librarian: Great. That will help us add some synonyms to our search to find sources. πŸ™‚
Leah Librarian: I'm going to recommend we start with your library's catalog, as it will search more than one database at a time: *Link removed for privacy* 
Leah Librarian: Are you focusing specifically on violet, or should we include the color purple, too?

Patricia Patron: Probably should stick with just violet

Leah Librarian: Okay. To do that, we're going to combine a couple of your topic keywords with the Boolean operators OR and AND, like this:
Leah Librarian: violet AND color AND painting AND (emotion* OR feel*) AND (effect OR impact OR result)
Leah Librarian: This should give us a general idea of what your library has on the topic, and we can revise or refine from there.
Leah Librarian: That gives us a couple results: *Link removed for privacy* 

Patricia Patron: Thank you so much

Leah Librarian: I also tried that in Google Scholar for good measure: Google Scholar search results
Leah Librarian: That has a lot more sources.

Patricia Patron: Again thank you so much, this gives me more options than normal Google search

Leah Librarian: You are most welcome, Patricia!


Spotlight on Librarian Excellence

What to do when the seemingly perfect resource is out of reach? Ask your friendly Co-Op librarian for help expanding your research horizons! 

May 3, 2025 | 1:02 am

Portia Patron: Hello! I'm looking for a book called Naturhaus by Marie Granmar, or anything similar to it. I believe it's only in print in Swedish, but that's okay. Thank you!

Luke Librarian: Hi, what is the book about?  What might be similar to it?

Portia Patron: It's a mix of architecture and sustainable living, merging homes with greenhouses
Portia Patron: I'd be open to anything that focuses on building greenhouses, but I really want the creative architectural perspective not just "how to build a greenhouse"

Luke Librarian: Let me see what we can find
Luke Librarian: The library doesn't have this book; in fact, I only found it in three libraries in the country.

Portia Patron: Whoa...who knew the first book I tried to find at the library would be so rare lol

Luke Librarian: I did a search on architecture AND sustainability and here is what the results are: *Link removed for privacy*
Luke Librarian: When I added greenhouses to the mix I got these: *Link removed for privacy*
Luke Librarian: Any of these look useful?

Portia Patron: This is amazing thank you!
Portia Patron: Toward a New Regionalism looks promising. How would I find more books like that?

Luke Librarian: If you open the link to the title, you will see subject headings for this book
Luke Librarian: You can click on those to see other books in the same subject area

Portia Patron: Beautiful. This is my first time using the library as an adult. Thank you for making this so easy πŸ™‚ I'll start with this for now!

Luke Librarian: I am glad you came to us for help.  We are always here anytime you need us!


FAQ-tastic Interactions

It's always satisfying when a last-minute question can be speedily answered with help from an institution's LibAnswers FAQs!

May 17, 2025 | 8:03 pm

Peony Patron: I have books that I need to return and the only open library is the law library. Can I return them there?

Lexi Librarian: Hi, Peony, this is Lexi. I'll check on that. Are they due soon?

Peony Patron: They are due next month but I am leaving the area today for the summer

Lexi Librarian: Thanks! Working on it
Lexi Librarian: This page names some book return bins: *Link removed for privacy* 
Lexi Librarian: Would that work?

Peony Patron: Yeah that's great! Thank you for the help!

Lexi Librarian: You're very welcome ~ Come back anytime at all!



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