Adventures in Embedded Librarianship

Otherwise known as the Yahoo Answers Experiment.

Here is the link to my profile:
Kelly

Name an Italian Food

In library school, we've learned that the question a person asks is not always the question he or she really wants answered.  So when this person asked for some different types of Italian food, I thought he or she might be interested in some recipes or a little information about the characteristics of cuisine from various regions throughout Italy.  I hoped to direct this person to a few pages that would enable them to try cooking Italian foods, including sites listing common ingredients, and guides on basic cooking skills, in my answer I tried to pepper in a few of the most Italian-sounding terms to pique the person's interest. 

Here is a link to the question:
Name an Italian Food

What is the Density of Pluto

Any chance I get to restore Pluto to its former glory, I'm going to take it.  What really threw me for a loop was the second 'tacked on' question here.  The problem being that this person has extra information, which is the article by Peale et al. in their textbook.  Using my powers of librarianship I 'hypothesized' that predictions about volcanic activity on the moons of Jupiter would probably have little to do with how tides affect volcanoes on earth, I decided to focus my research their in the hopes of offering up appropriate resources to lead the person to the right conclusion on his or her own. 

Here is the link to the question
What is the density of Pluto?

Race and Beauty

So, it's the internet, and when somebody asks why "whîte ppl" (and I'm not sure I understand the presence of the circumflex here, the word only one syllable long) want to prove that "their race" is the most beautiful, you can expect things to get ugly fast.  The thing is, there is no such thing as a stupid question, and I would wager that there are many out there who try to say that "white people" are the most beautiful.  So I tried to answer this question in terms of the social constructions of race and beauty.  I am glad I attempted my research before the conversation tended the way that it did.

I'm also excited that I found a really cool interactive website from PBS using the ipl2 tool we discussed in class. 

Here is the link to the question
Race and beauty

American visa question

Since I really didn't know much about immigration and visas, I'm really glad I was able to offer this person some helpful information to sort of put her or him at ease about coming to the United States to continue school.  It took a while to sort of muddle through the government information, which was perhaps more difficult, because I didn't quite understand the nuances of the situation, but I could certainly imagine how frustrating and unnerving it would be for a person in this situation.  In the end I hope and I think I was able to offer her some helpful information and peace of mind.

Here is the link to the question
American visa question

How do you tell if food is poisoned?

This was a rather silly question, so I interpreted it to give a bit of a tongue-in-cheek answer.  I offered the user some resources on good hygiene and reccomendations for avoiding food poisoning and accidental poisonings.  From the way the question was asked, I'm tempted to say this person was either having a good laugh or suffering from some sort of paranoia, there are so many non-verbal clues you miss out on in text-only interaction, but there's no reason to exacerbate that with name-calling.

Here is the link to the question:
How do you tell if food is poisoned?

Baking Powder and Baking Soda



This question was fairly straight forward and I got to learn something new, which is always fun.  I did not know that baking powder and baking soda were interrelated.  Though I imagine cross-substitution is not ideal, because baking powder has some extra ingredients, in a pinch, it might be okay to experiment.  Many times, I feel, bakers are very stringent about following the rules, so for this question, I hoped to be encouraging.

Here is the link to the question:

Can you mix anything with baking powder to make baking soda?

Why Did You Leave Your Last Job

For this question I turned to About.com, one of the resources listed in the Best Free Reference Web Sites Combined Index on the RUSA website. In one of my classes, we read an article about positioning theory. In this case, I did not want to position someone who was having anxiety about a job interview by suggesting they may have been released from previous employment. So I listed general information first and samples for how to respond if you were fired second, in order to illustrate how it is important to put a positive spin on things.

Here’s the Link
How to answer “Why did you leave your last job”?

Is Neptune's great dark spot bigger than Earth

Some say "write what you know;" Emily Dickinson said, "forget that, I'll write whatever I want." I went looking through the categories on Yahoo Answers because I wanted to learn more about astronomy. I am happy to say that when I went looking for this answer I had no idea what the answer would be. I had to do some double-checking to come to an answer I was satisfied with. Now I know something new. Yipee!

Here's the link to the question

Neptune's Dark Spot

So many answers, not enough questions: How many miles to the moon?

This would qualify as a reference-ready question. However, I got to use one of the new resources we discussed in class. I'm still trying to figure out the ins and outs of WolframAlpha, but I feel like it could be really handy for someone like me, who doesn't really care for numbers.

Here's the link
Miles to the moon

I'm beginning to really question the level of academic discourse on Yahoo Answers.

More Catch-up: What was the name of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien's Oxford Literary Discussion Group

So I may have inadvertently thrown the book at this one. I looked first at Tolkien Studies, and then to the Journal of Inklings Studies, which provided many links to free resources on the web. I may have gone looking for questions on the Chronicles of Narnia... Even reference librarians have their guilty pleasures, right?

Here is the link:

C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien

Playing Catch-up: Doctors aren't legally allowed to date their patients?

Would I trust a doctor who saw his or her patients as prospective sexual partners? Heck no! Which makes this one of the moments where you sort of have to set assumptions aside.

I was actually surprised by the way which this one went; I expected it to be a clear-cut answer, but as it turns out provisions against doctors dating patients is kind of a grey area relegated to the realm of professional standards and guidelines. I guess not many people, doctors hopefully being the exception, actually think about these moral issues coming down to a matter of being a member of a professional organization.

I started with the fact that I knew that the Hippocratic Oath included a line about sexual relationships with patients. Of course, this isn't exactly a binding document in today's day and age, but the AMA's page on the Hippocratic Oath led me to modern resources on the topic.

Here's the link to the question

Doctors aren't allowed to date patients?

[Redacted]

Okay, so, as I glanced over my repertiore of Yahoo Answers, I noticed something annoying: one of the questions I had answered had been deleted. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, because the user was basically asking about where to access copyrighted material for free.

The thing is, I felt like I handled the question really well. I found Martha Stewart's website had a few of the recipes from the book available, and directed her/him to the preview of the contents page on Amazon.com, and suggested she/he visit a free service, AllRecipes.com as a means of finding similar recipes. And, of course, I suggested she/he check out her/his local library.

As a responsible and ethical librarian, I felt I was able to offer the user a little bit of what she/he wanted, and where I lacked I offered her/him some alternative sources. Oh well.

Is sophmore [sic] an oxymoron?

I'm generally off-put by the level of discourse on Yahoo Answers. I know that as an embedded librarian, I need to respect the culture of the environment, but seriously, how many people are going to ask how long it will take for opiates to leave their system? I was hoping to find a question that I could approach using some of the new resources we talked about in class, but I spent so long browsing that I just had to pick something to answer to make myself feel better.

So this was another short one, and I happen to love words, so it certainly wasn't the greatest reference challenge I've ever attempted. I also took a shortcut, in that as a sophomore in high school, my guidance counselor gave my class a grand speech on why we shouldn't be sophomores, particularly the "-mores," so I began knowing what I wanted to find.

I wanted so badly to OED this question into submission, but unfortunately the mighty Oxford does nothing for free. Instead our book mentions OneLook.com and Dictionary.com. I tried OneLook first, hoping for a tidbit from Merriam-Webster or the Compact OED (referenced in the text.) Instead the search engine directed me to Wikipedia (gasp!) I turned instead to Dictionary.com, which in turn directed me to the Online Etymology Dictionary, which gave me what I wanted, a link to the Greek roots of the word.

I then Dictionary.com-ed the definition of oxymoron, which itself contained an allusion to the "wise fool," and was able to offer this up to the user.

Here is a link to the question: Sophomore

What are 3 organelles plant cells have that animal cells do not?

Bravo to me! My fist Best Answer; I did try to work pretty hard on this one, inspecting many different resources. I don't know very much about biology, so I wanted to make sure I got it right. I looked at a lot of .edu and educational websites. I suspected that it was a high school student asking the question and tried to find resources that were somewhere in the middle of the age spectrum, not too young, not too old. I would probably consider this a medium-long answer; I tried too pull out the most pertinent bits for my summary.

Here's the link: Plant Organelles

Is there such a thing as a reversed dictionary?

This question was so quick and simple, I just had to answer it. It even gave me a chance to show off one of the resources we learned about in class. More than anything, I thought it would be a good idea to answer an easy question to boost my confidence and familiarize myself with the service.

Here is the link: Reverse Dictionary

Seriously, how did I not get the best answer?

First Answer: What was the end result of The Pullman Palace Car Strike?

This was the first question I answered in Yahoo! Answers to promote library awareness. I was really worried about getting it right because I'm not used to having to evaluate web sources. Usually, I can turn to scholarly databases and trust that the information is good. In this case I found a lot of '.edu' websites featuring papers written by students. I would consider this a medium-short answer. In the end I offered the user two sources: one to a source of online magazines, and one to an encyclopedia associated with the Chicago Historical Society and the Newberry Library. Most of the information I encountered seemed to indicate the same things, which led me to believe that these sights would be credible.

Here is the link to the question: The Pullman Strike