Lay of the land ( Assignment 1)

Hilton C. Buley Library Reference Department

The Reference collections (printed and other non- printed

reference materials) are located on the first and second floor of the library
building. The reference desk is located on the main floor (First floor) of the
library in the middle between the entrance and the circulation desk. I Think
that location is quite suitable for new visitor or library users, and it also
convenient for the reference librarian who could help users without leaving
the area of their reference desk, especially it’s near one of the network
station available at the library, where student or visitors could access the
electronic resources collection through the internet, and the library site, and
at the same time they could find the help from the reference librarian who
could easily guide or teach them how to get the information they need if it
available online. The rest of the place available in these two floor designed to
have shelves for restoring these reference materials and the reading places
which is far from the noise of entrance.

Collections

Print materials in the Reference collection consist of almanacs like ( Almanac

of the 50 States, The Universal Almanac, World Almanac ), Bibliographies
(standard, general, and subject specific), biographical sources,
concordances, dictionaries (English language, foreign language, and subject
dictionaries), general encyclopedias, specific subject encyclopedias,
geographical sources (atlases, gazetteers, maps) like: Atlas of Connecticut
Topographic Maps, there are guidebooks, handbooks, loose leaf materials,
manuals, newspaper and periodical indexes and abstracts, pamphlets,
statistical/table compilations, basic texts with high reference value, and
yearbooks. Government documents are included in the Reference collection
if their content falls within the criteria of reference materials like Census
(1990) , Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments,
Congressional Directory (105th Congress)
Non- print materials (Electronic reference resources) include :1- On-line
databases, Alphabetical List of Electronic Resources by Title like which
include Most Popular Databases: (Academic Search , JSTOR, Medline, ERIC2-
e-books, like: (Credo) Reference e-books, including dictionaries, guides, and
handbooks. There are also (Digital Dissertations) which have Full text of over
1 million dissertations and theses (mostly from the last 10 years); indexing
and abstracts for older dissertations back to 1637. Equivalent of Dissertation
Abstracts
3- Internet sites like: The African American Resource Guide to the Internet
and Online Services, Cyber hound’s Guide to Internet Databases, Internet
Searcher's Handbook. The reference librarian offer help to how to use the
Internet at Southern Connecticut State University. There are also other
reference sources like: (The National Directory of Addresses and Telephone
Numbers, and The New York Public Library Book of How and Where to Look it
Up
Staff
There are seven reference librarians in addition to the head of reference
department, they are specialist in (Arts, Business, Education, Science, and
Social sciences) their rooms and phone numbers and e- mail addresses are
available on the reference department site. They offer research guidance to
help users to know how to use the library resources, and how to do basic
research using the library resources. They also offer library tour weekly.