Your New Best Friend on Campus: The Librarian

Besides for a theme party costume, when was the last time your really thought about your college librarian? If you’re a college student in 2010, you’re probably pretty satisfied with your knowledge of databases, digital research tools and even the Dewey Decimal System. But college librarians aren’t dowdy or clueless: they’re tech savvy, too. In fact, many college librarians have master’s degrees and regularly attend trainings and conferences that teach them about exciting new software programs and tools to bring to the library. The next time you have a question about a research paper or just finding a book you need for class, head to the reference desk for help, or even call ahead and ask if you can make an appointment to learn more about the library’s best assets.

If you attend a larger school or research university, your college probably has numerous libraries. Depending on your schedule, you may have to use more than one library, and there’s no way you can be expected to know the ins and outs of all the collections. From online journal subscriptions to full-text database systems to whole floors devoted to multimedia collections, and special reference collections housed in less visited areas of the library, you need to visit an actual librarian if you want to find primary sources and the real "meat" for your project.

Librarians love helping students educate themselves and learn how libraries work. And unlike your professors, they may be more likely to point you in exactly the right direction instead of making you figure it all out on your own. You’re not going to look uncool if you start following your college librarians around instead of wandering around aimlessly by yourself. Plus, you can save hours on each project if you just ask for help finding the right place to look for research. It’s no different than befriending the guy behind the pizza counter so that he knows to give you the biggest slice each time. Your new best friend on campus should be the librarian: if you keep wanting to learn more, he or she will be able to figure out just what you need, maybe even before you ask.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 at 8:08 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.