Lay Of The Land

Terry Wasserman ILS 504 Prof. Okobi Lay of the Land 1/31/09

T. Wasserman ILS 504 Spring 09 Lay of the Land

The tour of Buley library was very interesting—I familiarized myself further with Consuls and was interested to see that ECSU has a separate reference area, even online. I accustomed myself to the many different library science databases and read the library science subject guide. Many of the links in the subject guide are very useful and the guide contains a wide-variety of information. I had never used Emerald before and had some difficulty at first but was able to see an abstract. I also looked over the Gale Virtual Reference Library—All together it was a very useful exercise.

I also went on a tour of New York Public Library (www.nypl.org) this is the library I am most accustomed to using and will use throughout this course, in addition to Buley. Though I often find myself at the research branch on 42nd, it was interesting to learn more about the online services, including the reference librarian chat service. I had a long “chat” with a reference librarian and learned a good deal about how to find many different relevant sources and what software I would need to read them. I have often used Catnyp (the online catalogue) when I’ve done research at the library, but I have done much less research online. It was a very useful tour and really broadened my familiarity with the New York Public Library system.