Today I had a patron call me, asking for an article from a national magazine. She gave me what she thought was the month and year, and the name of the person the article was about. That was all the information she had, and she had been trying for many frustrating hours to find this article. So, she called the library. I did my very best to help her find the information she was looking for, but even EBSCO was no help this time. So, I took her name and number, and promised to do my best to find this article. Now it was time to call out the big guns, so I called the WV Library Commission reference desk. Sure enough, after many MORE frustrating attempts to find the information the patron was looking for, I was finally able to determine, we were looking in the wrong place, and that she had the issue off by 2 years. But with this information, we were able to locate the abstract for said article, and hopefully by tomorrow, it will be here at our library, through the miracle of FAX. I called the patron, who couldn't believe that we would take the time to do all that work to find her the information she needed. Her reaction validated why I LOVE doing reference work. It's a treasure hunt! And the reward is a happy patron, who will tell her friends and colleagues how wonderful her local library is!
Yep. It's been a good day.
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