Busy, Busy, Busy

I know I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again - it's been busy around here. Between work and schoolwork, I feel like I'm moving until I drop and then up and moving again. I'm taking a few days this week to recharge - I'm visiting my aunt and uncle in Cleveland before I head to Pittsburgh for class this weekend.
Earlier this month for one of my reference class assignments I had the opportunity to look up terms in two medical dictionaries and compare the dictionaries. (Medical questions always remind me of my cousin the doctor.) That assignment caused me to decide to replace the medical dictionary in my library - we currently have Black's but will be changing to Stedman's. I had the toughest time finding "esophagus" in Black's - actually had to look at the anatomy diagrams in the center to find that it was spelled oesophagus. This was after I had already noticed that Black's used British spellings - guess I didn't realize just how far-reaching this would be. At any rate, I decided if I couldn't find things in that dictionary, my patrons probably couldn't either. We'll be replacing that one!
I'm enjoying how much my assignments this semester have some bearing on my job. It's an interesting symbiosis to be working in a job and studying for it at the same time. Some things are easier because I have some knowledge of them - like some of the reference questions, when I know what resource to look for. Others seem to be harder because I'm trying not to do things the way I always have. My first line of defense for reference questions for the past few years has been Google. Now with this class I'm trying to go other places first. For the last assignment, I actually spent several hours in our main library's reference department trying not to use the computers at all. I roamed the reference stacks using my acquired knowledge of Dewey to figure out where resources would be. It was fun!
I'm finding that this class is affecting how I approach looking for the answer to a question, even at work. I used this different approach the last two times I worked an Ask Here PA shift. It helped me answer some of the questions more quickly. I find in general library life that I'm answering fewer reference questions as a manager than I did as a youth services person. My office is farther away from the desk...

Reference questions

As I take my reference class this semester, I'm amazed at both how much I know and how much I don't know, just from working as a youth services librarian for a bunch of years. My first three years I worked in a library that didn't have a reference assistant - the manager and I answered most of the reference questions.
For class we have assignments of lists of questions that we need to use specific sources to find the answers. (Something's wrong with the grammar of that sentence - it doesn't quite sound right... I think it should be "for which we need to use specific sources to find the answers.) The first time I read over the list of questions, I seem to think "I have no idea." Then I read over them again, and I know where to look for some of the answers. After I read the textbook, I know where to look for more of the answers. I could probably find all of them but my usual methods are less effective than using the methods I'm learning in class. (And they take more time than what I'm learning - at least they will once I have practice with the new stuff.)
I'm looking forward to seeing how my newly-honed reference skills will affect my effectiveness in doing the chat reference each month. I can find the answers, but hope to gain speed in doing so.

Ask Here PA, again

I manned a shift on Ask Here PA again today. I find myself getting into the most interesting questions there. I'm sometimes frustrated by the depth of some of the questions, particularly the ones that start one place and end up being something totally different. I have reference questions in person at work that do the same thing, but maybe it's harder to do the reference interview over chat. Sometimes I've gotten someone who has difficulty typing, and it takes a few minutes in between my question and their answer. I don't want to waste that time, so I'm starting the search for the information - just without all the clarification. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Today's main/tough question would have been easier to answer with a print reference tool - the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. Someone was looking for a particular issue of a particular magazine in the 60's without remembering what magazine or issue it was. Tricky. I was able to answer the "how can I find a job in ____ state?" question, though. I was glad about that.