Keywords From a Librarian

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/keywords_from_a_librarian

This is the first of a series of occasional posts I call FUNQs, for Frequently UNasked Questions. These are perplexities that anyone new to an institution — whether faculty, freshman, or employee — is sure to have about the campus library. Some FUNQs, like that below, appear to be straightforward, one-time issues. After someone has discerned the answer, they think they can check it off their agenda for good. But no. Unlike species on a birder’s lifetime list, certain FUNQs need to be checked off anew for each library a person confronts. Many arrangements, both physical and virtual, vary from library to library, some to good purpose and some to no purpose. All a fresh student or scholar can do is accept that the campus library is not Walmart and proceed with caution as they would when encountering a foreign culture.