Competency - Successive Fraction WorldCat

I decided to go back to WorldCat for this search and to use only descriptor terms since they seem to turn up the best search results. First I looked through the thesaurus and found collection development was a descriptor term.

SS1 - collection development (su) - 2268 hits

Next I searched the thesaurus and saw elementary school libraries as a subject term.

SS2 - collection development (su) AND
elementary school libraries (su)

I got 28 hits. All of the records looked promising, but all except 2 were books. This isn't really a problem, but if the searcher needs the information immediately, or as many people in our class, live out of the country, this could be troublesome to them. There was even a book by our friend David Lankes listed here! I chose this record as my favorite:

Competency - Internet

I am a huge fan of School Library Journal's website. There is so much information available on this one little website! Please check it out and enjoy! I hope you find it as useful and informative as I do.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/

Competency - Image

Please enjoy my image:

How many times have we heard these responses? Retrieved from: http://www.librarian-image.net/2004/Top10.jpg November 12, 2009.

Competency 6 - Pearl Growing Academic Search Complete

For my pearl growing strategy, I started with this citation:


This article was about how a school improved its collection and the effects it had on library usage and the checking out of materials. I used these subject terms for my pearl growing:

SS1 - DE(School libraries -- book selection) OR DE (School libraries -- collection development)

I received 70 hits, all of which were useful articles on collection development in a school library. If I were doing a research paper on a more specific aspect of collection development, I probably would add another descriptor to my search to narrow down further. I chose the record for a good article on how to select Spanish language or bilingual books for a school library if you aren't bilingual. While I can speak Spanish, I am not completely bilingual (yet). At my school, over half of the classes in each grade level are bilingual English/Spanish. Our library is filled with Spanish language books, but I'm not sure I would know which are the best titles to order. Here is the record:

Competency - Multimedia

I chose this video because it can be difficult getting kids interested in reading. As soon as they find out that a movie was originally a book, they immediately want to read it. This video shows the interesting dynamic between an author and movie director developing a book into a movie. I also picked this clip because I am a little biased. I love this book! This video was retrieved from: http://www.hulu.com/watch/99642/movie-trailers-where-the-wild-things-are---maurice-sendak-and-spike-jonez-vignette on November 8, 2009.

Competency 6 - Project MUSE Specific Facet First Strategy

For this database, I began searching in all fields w/text.

Facet 1: Collection Development 21,606 hits
Facet 2: School 48,240 hits
Facet 3: library 54,648

So I started with ((collection development) AND (school)) in all fields w/ text. I got 10,810 hits.
Next I added library.
((Collection and Development) AND (school) AND (library)) in all fields w/ text. I got 5,931 hits. This is still way too many hits and I noticed that there are many about colleges or universities, so I added NOT (college) or (university) or (high).
This removed very few document from the list because I still got 5,919 hits.
I guess Carol was right in the Power Point that this search strategy is best suited when you are searching highly unique terms. I think my terms are too broad. So, I decided to narrow down and search all fields except text.

Facet 1: collection development 103 hits
Facet 2: school 1,519 hits
Facet 3: library 1,418 hits

This time I started with ((collection development) AND (library)). I got 47 results.
Next I added school.
((collection AND development) AND (library) AND (school)) - 2 hits.
Well neither one was very helpful to me for a paper I would write on this topic, but I chose this article because it was interesting. It is about the history of school libraries in South Dakota.
I think for a different type of search I would like Project MUSE. I will continue to play with it to see its pros and cons.

Competency 6 - ERIC Building Block Search

Continuing with my search about school library collection development, I used the building block worksheet to build this search:
Concept 1 - Library
Possible synonyms - media center
Concept 2 - school
Possible synonyms - elementary, middle, NOT high, college, university
Concept 3 - collection development
Possible synonyms - selection, weeding
I came up with this search string:
(kw: library or (kw: media and kw: center)) and ((kw: school or kw: elementary or kw: middle) NOT (kw: high or kw: college or kw: university)) and ((kw: collection and kw: development) or kw: selection or kw: weeding)
I got 1,543 results. This is too many results, so I limited them to:
Language: English
Subscriptions held by TWU
This returned 417 results
Here is the record I chose:


I like the building block search technique. I feel comfortable that this search technique will provide good results because of the use of synonyms.