If you catch a fish for a woman, you can help her for one day. If you teach her how to fish, you help her for a lifetime. That is my approach to helping people with computers. When it is possible, I tell the patron what they need to do and let them do it. This way they may remember how to do it the next time. There are times when this doesn't work. If someone who has no computer skills wants to do something complicated involving the computers, I will often do it for them because it is just going to be frustrating for everyone if they do it.
Along the same lines, if a patron is a student in a class and needs to do research, I tend to show them how to do the research themselves rather than do it for them. I figure part of the reason they got the assignment was to learn how to do research. I wouldn't want to rob them of a learning opportunity. Now, I will get them started on their own and then research the topic myself as a way of helping. If a patron is not a student, I will just do the research for unless I discover that this is something they are going to need to do more than once and it is something they can learn with a reasonable amount of effort.
Sharon Hammond, a previous reference staff member, gave me this rule of thumb. If someone comes in to look at the one reel of microfilm, put the reel on the machine yourself. If someone comes in to look at more than one reel, it is going to be best for them and you if they know how to put the reel on themselves. You can expand that out to more things than using the microfilm machine.
Alan
What’s New
16 years ago
