Competency: WorldCat and Eric Search

I decided to do my search on collection development for elementary and/or middle schools. I chose this topic because I feel like I need to learn more about how to create a good library collection. First, I searched using WorldCat. I began with school librar* and collection development (keywords). This search yielded 1593 hits. Then, I added elementary or middle (keyword). This search yielded 231 hits, but a lot of them were about literacy, not necessarily librarianship. I then decided to search with everything the same, but only changing collection development to title. This yielded 21 hits, but many of them were from the 1980s. I didn't want to relive my childhood, so I tried again, this time with collection development back in keyword but narrowing the dates from 2006-2009. This yielded 31 hits, so I stopped there. Here is the record of a dissertation from a former TWU Ph.D student (available at North Texas University):

On to the ERIC search. I started with school librar* and collection development (keywords) just like with WorldCat. This yielded 702 hits. I narrowed again to school librar* as keyword and collection development as abstract and elementary or middle as abstract. This yielded 41 hits, so I decided to quit. Here is a record from this search:

Overall, I liked ERIC's search results better than WorldCat. There were many more useful resources and many more that were available at TWU. I also think it helps that you can search the abstract.
Click on the picture of the record to see it bigger and more clearly.

Competency 4 - RSS Feed

I chose School Library Journal's K-8 news feed. I came to love School Library Journal's website when I was took Information Professions 5813. I used it for research as well as for my journal assignment. It has great information in all areas of school librarianship. Check out this link to the K-8 news. The homepage is here. Explore and enjoy! The RSS feed appeared at the bottom of my blog, in case you are wondering where it is.

Competency 3 - Podcast

So, I had a little trouble finding a podcast that I liked that pertained to me. I don't know if I was using the podcast search engines incorrectly or what, but I finally found one using podcastsearchservice.com. It is called Children's Book Radio. It has a website as well as an RSS feed. The website has a list of suggested reading by grade level from pre-k through 12th as well as all of their podcasts available for your listening pleasure. They do children's book reviews as well as interviews with prominent children's authors. Since I would like to be a school librarian, this podcast could be helpful when looking for resources on collection development. Here is an MP3 link to episode 22, an interview with Jean Craighead George. Enjoy!

Competency 2 - Related Blog

I found this blog called The LibrariYAn using Google Blog Search. I searched for "school librarian" blogs and had to sift through PAGES and PAGES before I came to a good one. This one stood out to me because 1: Alicia's profile says she is young and a new librarian (something in common) 2: Her posts are informative and worth reading 3: The blog is about YA literature (in case you couldn't tell from the name) which I love and will need to know more about when my own new career as a school librarian begins
The link is: http://librariyan.blogspot.com/
This blog does offer an RSS feed, so subscribe away. Here is a sample post. I chose this one because it also has to do with another topic of interest for me, diversity in the school library. Enjoy!

Saturday, August 29, 2009

The Skinny on Plus-Size YA

In the past few days there have been a flurry of articles highlighting one of the new trends in YA fiction. No, it's not vampires...or werewolves...or zombies...or fairies...or any other supernatural or magical creatures. It's novels featuring overweight teen protagonists!

As I've been thinking about ordering books for my library, I've been careful to ensure that the fiction list contains books reflecting the wide array of racial and cultural diversity in my student body and covers all genres. I looked for titles featuring characters with various physical, mental and psychological abilities and differences. But I never thought about their weight. But I'll bet my middle schoolers (fat, thin, short, and tall alike) think a lot about their weight, and I'll bet that I have students who are looking to see their clothing size represented on our shelves.

I confess to not having read any of the titles noted in the articles, but I definitely plan to check them out. One of the ABC articles includes a handy list of recommended reads, which gives a nice quick plot summary for each book. Looks like I've got some additional purchasing to do!

In the Beginning.....

Hi everyone. This blog is for my LS 5013 Information Storage and Retrieval class at TWU. I will be posting assignments for my class here and sharing ideas with my classmates. I am a 4th grade teacher who hopes to become a school librarian. My area of interest is anything that has to do with elementary or middle school libraries, from book reviews and collection development to building lesson plans and incorporating technology. I am also passionate about diversity in libraries.