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.
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!
When patrons are feeling blue, orange you glad a librarian is available to lend a hand? 💜 A few clarifying questions from Leah Librarian helped shine a light on Patricia's colorful topic.
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. 🙂
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. 🙂
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!
What to do when the seemingly perfect resource is out of reach? Ask your friendly Co-Op librarian for help expanding your research horizons!
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 🙂 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!
It's always satisfying when a last-minute question can be speedily answered with help from an institution's LibAnswers FAQs!
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!
Contact us for more information about the 24/7 Global Chat Cooperative so you can get started offering round-the-clock support today!