Day 50 - The Day After research

Yesterday (thursday) I went to the UPenn Chemistry library to do research for my boss. I was suppose to look up various wholesalers of a certain chemical. Overall I had a hard time finding the info, and had limited.............ok... little success.

What made my experience a very pleasant one despite all that failure was the service of the library. It was amazingly good.

Then Chem lib was really cozy, nothing fancy, like your old fashion musty library, filled with books books and books. There were barely any computers, save for 3 of them. Compared to the Van Pelt (main) library or even the NUS central lib, it was really small. Yet it was a nice place. I went to ask for help searching for a particular reference book, Chem Sources. Back in NUS, if you needed a reference book, you had to go to the counter, show your matric card then the person will get it for you from the rows of shelves in the back. At the Chem Lib at Penn, there were no rows and rows of reference books, just a cozy pile under the desk of the Librarian. And I did not even have to show my UPenn card. The librarian(an old lady) in a nice grandmotherly tone said, "I can remember your face, you take that book out of the library and you are going to the library jail" ^^ /ROFL

Ok so I got my reference book, but well.... the info was not enough, so i got refered to the other Librarian, the CHEMISTRY Librarian. It was this nice lady call Judith. She listened to what I wanted to find, which was Bulk manufacturers of a certain chemical and other stuff. Then she guided me step by step through the entire process. She showed me various library resources, and online resources I can use, I was amazed by her knowledge of Chemistry, its like 10 times more then mine. To top it off, she even printed her search results and told me to email her if I ever needed help. Such wonderful service at a personal level. I could never imagine the library staff going out of their way to help a poor, hapless and lost student (one with a blur blur look as well) to do their research!

What can I say, I am amazed by the vast resources avaliable to UPenn students. Certainly NUS might have such stuff, but I never really bothered to use them. I only go to the NUS library to sleep >.<

Then again I always sleep anyway anytime in NUS......