Elaine King

I decided to live chat with a librarian. This was an interesting experience. I found it a little difficult to phrase my question without any background information so I asked a basic question. Once I finally got in contact with the librarian she was so caught up on my original question she wouldn’t listen to my other questions. She also gave me a link to a Wikipedia article.

I was the second person in line and was told my wait time was about 1 minute. I sat there waiting for about 15 minutes. While I have no problem with this because I hoped the librarian would spend that much time with me, that was not the case. After about five minutes of the librarian looking for more information she told me her library was closing soon and to resubmit my question. I resubmitted my question, was told I was 3^rd in line and to wait 15 minutes so I stated to write about my experience so far in a different window. I was away from the screen for maybe 3 minutes I was checking back every now and again to make sure I didn’t miss my turn. Apparently I did. And they kicked me off. So I went to submit my question again and now chat was no longer available. This confused me because I thought they advertised 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The next best thing was to email my question. So I did that. I should get a response within two days.

While I think this idea of being able to talk to librarians without having to be there in person is really awesome, I am a little confused by it. At first I was shocked that I was actually talking to a real person from Oregon. In my experience when talking to someone on live chat it is either a robot or someone in another country. I was also a little disappointed because the librarian gave me a Wikipedia article. I also understand that the librarian I was talking to has a job to do and regular business hours I wish she didn’t take my question if she knew she didn’t have time for it.

I found that Google Scholar was the most helpful; I have also found that there isn’t as much information as I thought there would be on my woman inventor. Most of the databases didn’t have any information on her.

Mary Dixon Kies was the first American woman to apply and receive a patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for her technique on weaving straw with silk to make hats. Kies was born on March 21, 1752 in Killingly, Connecticut. Her culture is different than mine because she was born in the mid 1700’s. Things were a lot different back then. At this time the Naploeon wars were going on. Napoleon was at war with many European counties and the United States wanted to stay out of it. Therefore the US stopped importing European goods. The US government told the citizens to start manufacturing goods themselves. This is when the hat industry boomed because women needed to wear them while working in the fields.

Mary Dixon Kies’ technology was her technique on weaving straw with silk to make beautiful hats when a need for hats was important.

I didn’t really find any of the links given in step 3.3 helpful. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for and what interested me. I finally Googled “women inventors” and was given a large list of women. I chose Mary Dixon Kies because she was the first woman to receive a patent. This was a big deal because women were not allowed to own property and this stopped them from applying for patents and such. Kies opened a door for women and it is extremely inspiring.

This is where Cultural Research goes.