Geology Module Synthesis

The geography module has been one of my favorites thus far. This is due in no small part to the inclusion of National Geographic as one of the primary resources explored. I thoroughly enjoyed looking through their website, and I was unaware of the array of resources they provide. There are three main categories, however, that stuck out to me. The first is information and news on topics in both physical and cultural geography. This information tended to be geared towards a primary or secondary level of education, but would act as a good online encyclopedia for a patron interested in an introduction to a particular topic. The second was information on photography. National Geographic is widely renowned for its phenomenal photography. Contained within the website are several blogs that offer tips and tricks for how to shoot good-quality photographs. This information would be helpful for patrons interested in photography, especially for those that desired to shoot animals or in remote locations. Finally, the website offered a decent section on trip planning with suggestions for destinations and ways to arrive there. Consequently, this would be a good resource for adventurous patrons seeking a starting point for a vacation or expedition. Frankly, I intend to use it myself for that very purpose. Finally, I thoroughly enjoyed the National Geographic YouTube channel. This related resource would be extremely useful for patrons wanting a general overview of a topic, and for younger patrons who desired something more dynamic than a traditional print resource.

The Atlantic Cities site presented a lot of good information on topics germane to urban environments. I was particularly taken with its presentation of news and articles on crime, poverty, and the utilization of resources. The site not only provided good information, it is also extremely well designed and easy to navigate. While the information it contains is not necessarily of scholarly research quality, it certainly would meet the needs of the lay user, and provides a good jumping-off point even for an individual seeking scholarly information. I have definitely added this cite in my arsenal of reference tools because it provides easy to read, good information in a site that is intuitive to use and navigate. This makes it perfect for users with a variety of interests, backgrounds, and technical expertise.

The article on “Creating an Online Tutorial” was interesting and of particular relevance to Kent State’s online SLIS program since it detailed the creation of a resource specifically for use with postgrads in an internet environment. I thought that some of the suggestions presented in the article were good, especially the authors’ recommendation for a pre-test to ascertain the user’s knowledge. Overall, however, I thought that the authors missed the forest for the trees. I have used resources like the one described in the article before, and given the choice, I would prefer not to. In making a post on the course Reddit, I was amused to see that I am not the only one that holds that opinion. Consequently, as a reference librarian, I will strive not to create resources like the one described in the article because they seem to be poorly utilized and generally disliked.

I admit that I had trouble getting access to the GeoRef resources as Kent seemed to only have physical copies of the articles that EBSCO returned. That aside, I was taken with one of my classmate’s postings that detailed an article describing how geology librarians are falling behind in expertise in the field because they have focused too much on user services. I think this is an important issue for us as reference librarians to be aware of, regardless of the discipline. Ideally, we should strive to balance the depth of our expertise and the depth of the services we provide, never sacrificing the quality of one for the benefit of the other. I think this would be a delicate balance to obtain, and is something that I definitely want to be aware of as I enter the library field.  

I liked the geography sub-Reddit because of its breadth. The home page offered the typical mix of decent links to popular sources and requests for jobs and advice. However, the links to the additional sub-Reddits in fields like GIS, urban planning, and cartography provide the user with an incredible amount of useful information. I spent some time examining the GIS and map sub-Reddits, and I was impressed with the information they provide. Similar to the Atlantic Cities site, this would not be a good academic or professional resource, but it certainly provides excellent information for the lay user.  

Finally, I was enthralled with the number of academic institutions that the Google search for “Geography Librarian” returned. The site I chose to feature was from the UCSB geology web page, and talked about zip codes. In spite of being a generic Google search, many of the links that came back seemed to be of some quality. This reinforced to me the importance of knowing how and when to Google information. I read an article over a year ago where a reference librarian explained that, when stuck, he would Google his patron’s question and see what emerged. He commented that this is a viable search strategy for the discerning reference librarian. It is one that I will keep in mind.