Office Hours

Today, I had the opposite of the difficult discussion I last blogged about.

First, a student who's paper is sort of tangential to the class she's writing it for, but she's just going to town reading and learning great stuff! She came in to get some extra help finding sources, and we were able to find two great things on EEBO (YAY, I love EEBO!), and an edition of letters IN PRINT! that she want to look at. What fun! She borrowed two of my three office Bibles. (Because I'm that kind of a nerd.)

Another student came in having difficulty finding resources for a paper, but she really wants to do her question. I emailed a blogger, and a couple hours later, I was able to forward on some resource leads. The internet really does work sometimes!

I love when students get excited by their research. You can tell when they come to office hours. They may be having difficulty, but they can talk about what they've tried already, what they've learned so far, and what they're after. And a student with a good question is a student I can usually help, and I can usually count on to follow up on resources.

I love the part of my job that involves helping people find resources and think about what they've found and what they're reading. I love that generous people are willing to answer questions and help, too. (Thanks, M!)