The Just Ask Desk at the Main Library is staffed by librarians from 9 am - 5 pm, Monday - Friday, and by library school graduate students, 5 pm - 9 pm, Sunday - Thursday. The librarians who work there are from two departments: 1) Humanities & Social Sciences, and 2) Undergraduate Engagement. Check out the links to the directory if you'd like to match a name to a face or find out the subject specialties of these folks.

Usually, they can be found doing any one of a number of things. but their primary purpose is to assist patrons with research questions. You'll often see that when a librarian is working with a patron they ask the patron to have a seat behind the desk and use the dual monitory to walk through:

• a student's assignment in order to have a conversation about where they are in the process of getting it done and how we can best help

• various tools (databases, InfoHawk+, online resources),

• search techniques (developing a research question, formulating search terms, using Boolean & truncation to enhance search results)

• methods of evaluating results (credibility, variety of perspectives, scholarly vs. popular, primary vs. secondary, etc.

Sidebar for a Fun Fact - even though many of those librarians have worked here for years, you, the student working at the Service Desk (even if it's your first semester working for us) may possibly know more about building policies, checking things in and out, and other very important aspects of making this place run. Those librarians often rely on your knowledge to help patrons who have questions that they don't know the answer to, so be gentle with us. :)

Okay...back to the Just Ask Desk. An important technique called the "reference interview" is happening there, where we try to carefully pry a bit deeper than a patron's initial question in order to find out what their information need truly is. (Seriously, they teach classes on this "reference interview" thing, it's THAT important.) The librarian is also assessing whether they can provide the best help or if one of their subject specialist colleagues should be called on for their expertise in a particular discipline. Librarians refer to other librarians all the time...it's the beauty of a big school, having colleagues to rely on. We want you to refer patrons to librarians frequently in order to give them the full scope services we offer with in-depth research help.

True story: Once upon a time in the very early days of my early career, a patron came up to me with this rather innocuous question: "Where is your business section?" she asked politely. I pointed her to those sets of shelves and left it at that, until, that is, I noticed she was still "browsing" about an hour later. At that point she was looking pretty frustrated, so I went up and asked, "Can I help with anything else?" and her reply shocked me. "Yes, I'm trying to find the phone number for the Almay Company." She had been looking for that one thing for an HOUR!

I'm dating myself with this story, because it was the early days of Google, so her first instinct wasn't to look it up online. I did, however, and she was on her way in a minute, thinking I was magic. Meanwhile, I was feeling terrible that I didn't do a better job initially finding out what she really needed and therefore saving her a lot of time.

You might be thinking, "Why didn't she just ask for that?" but there is something about human nature that makes many of us shy or awkward about asking for help, and when we do, we often aren't as specific as we would need to be in order to be the most efficient.

Why am I telling you all this? So you'll understand that if you get a patron asking for something at the Service Desk, there may be more there. If it has anything to do with an assignment or research project, it's a good idea to refer that student to the Just Ask Desk so we can really get in there and explore what they need. Here's an easy line to say: "If you need any help with a research project, the librarians at the Just Ask Desk are happy to help."

When it's quiet and no one is seeking their assistance in person, the librarians working at the Just Ask Desk are also:

• fielding questions that come in through our chat service

• working on collection development

• keeping up with communication for the various committees and projects they are working on

• prepping to teach a class

• doing their own research for a publication or presentation they are working on

• etc. etc. etc.

Of course, sometimes they are over there talking to their colleagues about their cats or other nonsense, and when that happens, if they are being oblivious, obnoxious, or otherwise un-engaged while you could use a hand, please don't hesitate to step in and ask them. They'll snap to and be grateful you took the initiative, especially if a patron has been waiting for help. (We're working on not letting that happen but we're imperfect people, so...) Please let your supervisor know if you ever have any experiences with the librarians that you have concerns about. We hope that never happens, but if it does, we'd like to address it and we will do it diplomatically.

Last thing, if you have an inkling that you might want to continue working in libraries, please strike up a conversation with us and we'd be happy to talk with you about that.