Faces of your library: Warrnambool and Waterfront
Often behind the scenes dispatching and shelving books, or at their computers responding to students on Library Chat, our Library Advisory Services staff are some of the most helpful people on the planet! In the ‘Faces of your library’ series, you’ll get a chance to meet the staff at each campus library who you might find at the service desk, wandering among the shelves or responding to your questions online.
Meet Wendy Chapman from our Warrnambool Advisory Services team and Olivia Larobina, who works across both Waterfront and Waurn Ponds campuses!
Favourite library service
Wendy:
It’s hard to pick a favourite! I really like chat for those ‘time of need’ enquiries. With a click of their mouse, students can reach out to library staff for instant assistance. Our online workshops are also terrific. Students can check what’s available via the What’s On section on the library homepage, register online and join us via Zoom. Topics range from introductory searching and reference skills aimed at undergrad students to workshops for Deakin researchers. Classes are facilitated by librarians, with the opportunity to ask questions at the conclusion of each presentation.
Olivia:
I love the Interlibrary Loans service, because I think that it’s incredible that libraries all over the world can share their resources with one another. For anyone unfamiliar with this service, if you find an article or book that isn’t available in our collection, submit a request for that item to the Interlibrary Loans team who will work tirelessly trying to find another library around the world that can provide access to that resource.
Top three tips for using the library
Wendy:
- I really love our Skills for study webpages because they provide so much useful information regarding how to plan your search, from identifying key concepts in your assignment question, thinking of alternate terms for those concepts and clever techniques to improve how to construct your searches. Included are short videos that demonstrate searching for different types of resources, as well as advice on the peer review process and managing information such as references, files and folders. There’s even advice on how to convert text to audio, create permalinks to your search results, make a video, evaluate information and find software!
- Our ‘Access via Deakin’ bookmarklet is a fantastic tool when searching for journal articles using Google, or if you click on a link from social media. You may be asked to subscribe, log in and/or pay a fee to access the full text content. If you click the bookmarklet, it will reload the link via Deakin’s proxy server to access the resource for free if it’s one of the many online resources Deakin Library subscribes to.
- If you come across an error message when using the library, try clearing your cookies, cache and browser history. That usually fixes the issue! You can find out more about how to do this on our help pages.
Olivia:
- Add the ‘Access via Deakin Library’ bookmarklet to your browser to bypass online paywalls where we have a subscription. If we have a subscription to the resource through Deakin, this button will refresh the page with full access.
- Search for articles directly in their journals. Not all of the articles that are available via Deakin Library will be found through a library search, so make sure you look directly through the article’s journal to see if we have access to the full text.
- Plan, document and adjust your library search to uncover different results. It’s important to try different combinations of keywords and search filters when looking for resources. Think of alternative words for your keywords, such as synonyms, spelling variations and abbreviations.
Favourite recent movie or TV series
Wendy:
The Good Place and Schitt’s Creek. Both series are very funny and each episode is quite short. My intention was usually only to watch one episode, but I found I often binged.
Olivia:
WandaVision
A favourite quote
Wendy:
‘If you change nothing, nothing changes.’ – Tony Robbins
Olivia:
‘Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.’ – Oscar Wilde