Competency Six: Databases-Lexis and the Successive Fractions Approach

I started my search with the key term CENSORSHIP which netted more than 3000 hits.

Rather than bothering with that many hits, I edited my query. I added LIBRAR* and SCHOOL not PUBLIC, limited the publishing dates to the last two years and US publications only. I had to switch to natural language to get any results and when I did, my results were down to 425 total.

I decided to focus on censorship of books specifically, so I added BOOK* not INTERNET to the list, this only helped me discard 67 of the 425 hits. Looking at my search parameters, it struck me that I should add parentheses to clarify my search.

My final search query was: CENSORSHIP and LIBRAR* and (SCHOOL not PUBLIC) and (BOOK* not INTERNET) in US publications over the last two years. My search query pulled 83 newspaper articles about book censorship in school libraries between 2007 and 2009.

My search finally landed me with the following article, which is what I was looking for, but didn't know it.

As I was putting this blog together, I realized I did not make a notation as to where this article fell in the 83 hits I found so I recreated the search. What I found was that the system now kicked back 84 hits, but this article is no longer listed, although is was in the first 25 hits (the first page) when I performed the search originally. I also notices the order of the hits is altered.

If I had to conduct this search in a controlled vocabulary, it would have taken much longer to find my article, however this database allows the option of using natural language. There aren't as many limiters and expanders as there are in some other search engines, but this could be a plus in that I did not have to make as many choices.

As I am looking at my final search query, I notice directions not to use "wildcard characters such as ! and *" which I did since I did not see this notice before. Wondering if it would change my results, I removed the * from my query and ironic thing is that instead of providing more results, which I expected, I received a message: No Documents Found.

It seems to me that this database has some difficulty in replicating query results and their own tips don't necessarily offer the best search techniques. I am not sure that I would recommend this database specifically.

Competency Six: Databases-Project Muse & the Citation Peral Growing Search

I started with an article titled Defense Tactics: Combating Censorship by Diane Chapman. I found this article entering the search terms SCHOOL and CENSORSHIP. This is the third article of 2201. I chose this article to start with because I am interested in combating censorship at my own school where I have personally seen two books banned from our campus.


I added BOOKS or INTERNET and increase my hits to over 1700.


Looking at the references for the above article, I came across the term FREE SPEECH and added it to my query terms. I am now up to almost 2700 hits.

For my final search, I added CHILDREN"S LITERATURE or YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE, also pulled from the resources listed for the original article. I know have over 7000 hits.


I'm not sure I understand the point of this particular search. It seems to me that I would be better served creating a building block search based on the key terms from the original article. I understand building up useful texts, but I think the building block technique would net me more useful documents than this search does.

Competency Six: Databases-LibLit & the Specific Facet Search

New search query: How does the semantic web compare to the world wide web and what implications does it have on the school library?

My facets are: semantic web, world wide web, implications, school library. Since I am looking more for information on the semantic web, I will use it as my specific facet.

My first search, using no delimiters, delivered only 43 records.



I continued by adding the next facet, world wide web, yielding 6 results. Using the Boolean operator OR to add the acronym WWW to the query added one additional hit.

Adding my third facet (which is to broad for a specific facet search), school library to the query yielded no results.

When removing the word school from the facet, I end up with three hits, 2 that are full text.

One of the three hits for this query:

Reflections:

I can see how using this search would be beneficial if your initial search, using all facets, yielded not enough or too many results, but if the search using all facets returns a decent amount of hits, I don't see the need to go through the exercise of ordering the facets from most specific to least.

In my particular query, my end result was three hits. If I wanted to widen my net, deciding which facets are of most importance would help me to eliminate the term(s) that is(are) hindering the search.

I can see myself using this particular kind of search in the research I am doing for a paper currently. It would help narrow down a seemingly overwhelming amount of hits.

Competency Six: Databases-ERIC & the Building Block Search

After thinking about what I wanted to know, I settled on "How are students using the library?" I started with the following keywords: student, use, and library. My initial search netted 5109 hits.
From these three, I created my sets : (student* or teen*) and (usage or utilize or use) and library. This search netted me 5687 hits.

In my third search, I added statistic* as a key term. I was looking specifically for numbers and I still had too many hits that were not relevant (many had to due with drug usage). My final search netted me 619 hits.

The first article ("The Not So Big High School Library...Why Build So Big?" by Stansil, George Ira, III) on this final list seems to provide the information that I am looking for:

Reflection: When I initially put in my key terms, I expected hits to be returned about library usage, I did not expect so many drug and health related articles. When adding additional terms, one needs to think about what exactly one is looking for. I needed to go back and rethink my original purpose. By adding the word statistics, because I wanted numbers, I narrowed my hits and found one that looks promising.

Note: I went back to see if I could find my final choice in my earlier results and it came up as number 7 in both search one and two. It moved to number one with search three.

Competency Five: Tagging/Indexing/Catologing

LibraryThing tags: information technology(1) Library--Research(1) School Librarian(1)


Library Thing url: http://www.librarything.com/work/1461307


I used the tag "school librarian" to locate the book, 99 Jumpstarts to Research: Topic Guides for Finding Information on Current Issues by Peggy Whitley. My search pulled up only 13 hits, which surprised me actually. Of my choices, I chose 99 Jumpstarts... because is seems like it would be a good jumping off point for the types of research teens are required to do. As per the description, this book includes such information for each topic as: "suggested search terms; questions to think about related to the topic; sources for background and statistics; a listing of specific LC and Sears subject headings; magazines and newspapers; Internet sources with specific URLs and suggestions for locating additional Web sites; and agencies both private and public." This book seems like it would make a great collection to our professional library at school.

Competency Four: RSS Feeds

I chose to look for RSS feeds on the School Library Journal website (www.slj.com) first before using any search engines. For another class, I needed to choose a professional journal to analyze and in my research, I came across this website. The website looks to have a lot of good, usable information for my chosen field of school librarianship. As such, when needing to find an RSS feed for this class, I decided to look at the site see if they had an RSS feed, and not only did they have one, but they have many. I chose :"School Library Journal - Breaking News" because it is the main one for the journal.

After rereading my post, I decided to go back and actually look through all of the other RSS feeds and came across "School Library Journal - Teens News." I decided to add this one to my blog as well since this might provide information more specific to my current job as an 8th grade teacher.

There are actually quite a few that look like they could be intersting:

Censorship News
Copyright News
Digital Resources News
Gadgets News
Library Tools and Trends News
Professional Reading News
Web 2.0 News
School Library Journal's Battle of the (Kids') Books
Websites News
Popular Pages

Competency Three: Podcasts

I used the search engine Podcast Directory: http://www.podcastdirectory.com/ to locate the podcast: April updates from Jess Rigollaud Take 2 located at http://lis_460.podomatic.com/player/web/2009-04-12T13_05_06-07_00.

This podcast is created with both faculty and students to share information about school happenings. There is a student speaking about the research projects of 7th graders, a teacher reading a student's poem (the podcast is the April edition and April is Poetry Month), and various other school news and information. I believe these podcasts are the work of the librarian at this school as well.

I chose this podcast because it showed me a way that podcasts could be used in a school setting that wasn't just based in learning. This is another way that we can involve students in the school as a community as well as connect with students on their "playground" and with parents who don't always have time to sit down and read about what is happening. I find this an ingenious way to use technology in schools.

Competency Two: Blogs

I attempted to use two or three of the listed blog search engines, but was unable to find what I was looking for, so I decided to use just a plain, old Google search and found one of interest. I chose a blog titled Library Grits, a site about a librarian's "journey as a tenacious lifelong learner in the Teacher Librarian field." I specifically chose this blog because of her explanation of the title for her blog, which I found entertaining, if not accurate:

Library Grits....Why this name?? The noun version of grit has a number of synonyms, and if you look below, I think they describe the School and Teacher Librarian profession pretty well! (especially the intestinal fortitude). I chose grits because it is suggestive of being plural rather than singular - reflective of the multitasking and thinking we need to do.

Courage, determination, backbone, daring, doggedness, fortitude, guts, hardihood, intestinal fortitude, mettle, moxie, nerve, perseverance, pluck, resolution, spine, spirit, spunk, steadfastness, tenacity, toughness, bravery and firmness.

After further perusal, I also came across a posting about the pre-school year days spent in professional development. As a teacher, I understand how tedious these can sometimes be, but she has a particular passage about upper level students writing an extended essay and the concerns that have arisen. As eight graders, my students are expected to write essays with more content than before. We are also preparing them for high school. This post has a link to a wiki (which I though apropos given mod 1) that I find useful and plan on sharing with my coworkers when I go back in the fall.

This excerpt was taken from Library Grits located at: http://librarygrits.blogspot.com/ :

A few days later I was able to attend a day where IB Extended Essay Co-ordinators, Secondary Teacher Librarians, and Secondary Librarians discussed the Extended essay and how the library could support this aspect of the Diploma Program. This was a good opportunity for discussion of the main issues facing the Extended Essay Candidates. Some of the main concerns were that the students did not have the required information literacy skills or understanding of the process for creating the extended essay. This prompted me to create a list of essential skills from a variety of sources that are required to produce an exemplar essay, and from there work on a skills continuum for the middle and primary years curriculum. This pre-preparation will allow extended essay candidates can focus on the essay rather than have to learn the process at the same time. This is a work in progress and a project that needs extensive collaboration with teachers, co-ordinators and teacher librarians. You can see the initial stages at the wiki http://infolitskills.pbworks.com.

Competency One: Introduction

This particular blog has been created for the purposes of publishing a demonstration of the competencies for LS5013 for other students within the four sections to learn from, as well as for viewing by the GA for an assignment grade.

At this point in time, my interest in the field of library sciences lies in school librarianship, specifically, high school and middle school. My topic of interest is teaching students how best to navigate databases for research.