Hello all! With summer upon us, it’s time for Reference Training to morph into Search Camp!
We haven’t done Search Camp in a few years, so here’s general idea of what it is. For June, July and August, we’re going to focus our reference training program on developing and refining our literature search skills. We will also include search questions with a clinical focus, to foster experience with our vast array of clinical tools.
Here’s how it will work. Instead of one long monthly reference training meeting, we’ll have two shorter bi-monthly ones. Meetings will fall on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month, at 10:00 (as part of both the regularly-scheduled reference training and reference staff meetings). We’ll spend about 30 minutes at the beginning of each meeting on Search Camp, then cover other reference business when we’re finished so non-reference staff are welcome to leave after the Search Camp potion. Of course, you’re welcome to stay as well.
Here’s how meetings will be run. A few days before the meeting, I’ll send out two questions – a typical literature search question, and a more clinically-oriented (Morning-Report-Type) question. Both the questions will be real ones we’ve received from patrons in the past. Please work on the questions before the meeting, and come prepared to discuss your strategy: where you looked, how you searched, what you found, and questions or problems that came up. At the meeting, we’ll call someone up and give him or her the podium to show how s/he did the search, and reflect on the results. Then, we’ll open it up to discussion where others can share their ideas, strategies, questions, reflections, etc.
So, please come, no matter what your experience level. Everyone has things to learn and things to contribute. This is a great opportunity to help each other, pool our brain waves, and become super rock star searchers! Please don’t be intimidated by the format – it will be a friendly, supportive environment, and we’re all used to being on the spot on the reference desk anyway!
We will also have a search blog, where the questions will posted before the meeting, and strategies will be posted after. That way, we’ll have a record of the work we do to refer back to later.
Our first Search Camp is next Wednesday, June 13 at 10:00. The questions will be posted in the next few days, so stay tuned! If you have any questions, talk to me or Del.
Thanks, and see you next Wednesday!
Liz
Posted by biomedref at June 7, 2007 08:56 AM