The J.D. Williams Library is offering Wednesday workshops for students, faculty and staff at the university.
“These workshops are designed to help our patrons access and use our library resources with hands-on practice in our instruction classrooms,” said Ruth Mirtz, reference librarian. “We design all of the workshops to support research and library skills, but we hope they are fun and engaging as well. There is no homework! We want students, faculty and staff to see the library as a place of adventure and learning, not just a building full of tables and chairs.”
An estimated 200 patrons have attended Wednesday workshops to date. Topics vary, ranging from database training to creating your own podcast.
“Some of the workshops highlight specific discipline-related resources such as the ProQuest History Vault’s collection on the civil rights movement of the 20th century,” Mirtz said. “Other workshops are designed to help our students and faculty improve their research skills, such as our ‘Power Searching’ workshop.”
Jonathan McMichael, reference librarian, gave a workshop on One Search, a new search engine that helps patrons find books, articles, archival material, government documents and reference items from one search box. The workshop helped students and faculty learn about how the search engine works, how to refine and limit their hits, and how to access the full text of materials that are available online.
Mirtz encourages people to attend the workshops so they can receive personal assistance with topics of interest to them. She said she enjoys teaching the workshops.
“It’s been wonderful to reach patrons who wouldn’t normally try out new resources or who hesitate to ask questions in the library,” she said. “As librarians, we enjoy working with patrons one-on-one in these targeted workshops, where we have time to answer questions and concentrate on a specific feature of the library. Plus, we always learn new things from our patrons, too.”
A new workshop schedule will be available in the fall. Registration is not required but encouraged. For registration information and the full schedule of upcoming workshops, visit http:// www.olemiss.edu/depts/general_ library/intro/news.html.