Quality Tip Tuesday: Getting Ready for Back to School
Anyone who has ever walked into a discount retail or superstore in August has seen the frantic push for getting all the necessities for that first day of school. The shopping list covers implements for those three Rs, and emphasizes the peer-pressure to latch onto the style that best suits the student's personality, from black
skull-ladened backpacks to Barbie sugar-pink lunchboxes.
The same can be said for the variety of resources we have available at our fingertips when these students log in with homework and research questions. Our customers' homework help questions commonly need science project and chemistry help, how to find the correct mathematical results, locating a credible biography, knowing the correct grammatical sentence structure, and explaining the character development in an assigned novel.
For most people, it's easy to feel intimidated by such questions. For librarians, we have our secret weapons: an arsenal of online resources to turn to, empowered with a "go-getter" attitude! Here is a sample list:
- Policy Pages
- QuestionPoint's Resources for Homework Help found on their wiki
- The Internet Public Library
- Online tutoring assistance, when offered through the customer's library (such as Brainfuse described here by Prince George's County Memorial Library )
- Reader's Advisory help on Novelist K-8
- Subject Guides through SLRC
- The customer library's databases, such as those shared through Sailor
- Library's homework and research resources, such as --
These are just a few options for helping our student customers. With such a wealth of resources to turn to, we can boldly meet any challenging question. And remember, there are times when the question just may not be completely answered, when the research may need an expert or further exploring. In these cases, we can always offer to have the customer's question sent to the patron's library (or ourselves).
As we take a deep breath and prepare to meet the kids at our online doorways, have confidence! There are plenty of resources and good options for meeting the needs of our student customers. And who knows? You just might learn something new along the way!