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?