What You Can Expect From Us--And What You Should Not

• We try to help find the answers to our patrons' questions -- that's the nature of being a librarian. Assisting students with their homework is one of our primary job responsibilities -- if they ask for help, we will guide them as much as we can. Because the librarian’s job is to guide the students and answer questions about resources, a poorly planned assignment may leave students with little to do by themselves. Please review our tips for a successful assignment [1] to ensure a positive library experience for students.
• If we have many users to help at any given point we may gather all students working on the same assignment together and give a brief instructional session on resources. You should provide your students with explicit instructions for your assignments. Otherwise, we may help them more with assignments than you might prefer.
• You can also expect to hear from us. If significant situations develop with your assignment, we will call you to discuss them. You will typically hear from us if a needed reference resource becomes lost, vandalized, etc. (The best way to avoid most of these problems by putting books on reserve. If you do not, we may intercept the resources and call you to request that you do put them on reserve.) Likewise, we will call and verify the instructions when we believe we might misinterpret the instructions. So please put specific instructions on the assignment sheet.
• Our student assistants cannot retrieve "retired" or "storage" from the retired stacks after 8 p.m. on Sundays -- Thursdays; after 5 p.m. on Fridays; and after 4:30 p.m. on Saturdays.
• We will limit access to the computers for email and recreational Web availability during busy times.
• We have a color copier in the Gorgas Library 1st floor Copy Center.