Competency 9: Internet

The webpage I keep returning to is actually a directory that I found early in this course when I typed resources for school librarians in a Google search. This web site is simply titled "Resources for School Librarians" and contains a wealth of information on a wide variety of topics that are important to school librarians. Topics range from links to national skills standards to using web 2.0 in the library. Every time I visit this site I find new information that will be helpful to my future role as media specialist in a school library. For instance, today I found several lesson plans for teaching media literacy to students!

http://www.sldirectory.com/

Competency 6, Search 4: Specific Facet First with Academic Search Complete

For this last search, I decided to try once again the same question I have been searching, and I am hoping that Academic Search Complete will contain some useful articles.

Naïve Question: I would like to implement virtual reference services for my school library. What do I need to know and consider?

Facets	virtual	Reference services	School library
My initial terms	digital, online		media center
Thesaurus terms	Electronic reference services, online information services	reference services	school libraries

I really struggled with the virtual facet because there are so many different terms that are somewhat related. When browsing through articles, I found that many of the terms were used interchangeably, so I had to eliminate the ones that did not appear to retrieve pertinent information. In addition, the narrower subject headings also use the idea of the reference facet. This surely will affect my search, especially since this facet will most likely be the one to start the search.

Subject Headings:	Results:
Electronic reference services	344
Online information services	13,243
Reference services	1,628
School libraries	3,490

Since I am conducting a specific facet first search, I would add electronic reference services to reference service since these retrieved the smallest number of results. Since this is redundant, I will eliminate reference services as a facet for the time being. Instead I will add the next facet school libraries.

SS1: electronic reference services AND school libraries (subject terms search) Results: 2

Notes: These documents do support the question. However, I am hoping to find more articles on the topic. At this point, I will go ahead and add the redundant reference services facet back in to the equation to see if that will add more hits.

Church, A. (2006). YOUR LIBRARY GOES VIRTUAL: Promoting Reading and Supporting Research. Library Media Connection, 25(3), 10-13. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

SS2: (electronic reference services OR reference services) AND school libraries (subject terms search) Results: 24

Notes: This search brought up a few somewhat related topics, but none that directly addressed the question. I am sure that this search will not yield much more, but I will still add the last facet. At this point, I doubt I will find an article that will have both electronic reference services and online information services as subject headings, but I will still leave the initial subject heading in the search because I included the OR operator with reference services.

SS3: (electronic reference services OR reference services) AND school libraries AND online information services (subject terms search) Results: 1

Notes: As I expected, adding the last facet did not help at all! The one article it brought up is one of those somewhat related articles, and it was published almost 15 years ago. The only thing left to do in order to salvage this search is to remove the first set of subject headings.

SS4: school libraries AND online information services (subject terms search) Results: 18

Notes: Although I deviated some from the strategy, I am pleased to find that this search did retrieve a few more articles that are worthwhile in addressing the original naïve question. However, the best overall article is still the one I retrieved and cited in the initial search.

Warlick, D. (2005). Building Web Sites That Work for Your Media Center. Knowledge Quest, 33(3), 13-15. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Reflection: Unfortunately, this search strategy was the hardest one for me. I had to deviate from the strategy right away at the beginning and then again at the end in order to make it work for me. The most difficult part was making the connection between reference services and virtual capabilities since the subject headings overlapped. This might be a good thing in a different type of search, but it definitely created some roadblocks with this strategy.

 

Competency 6, Search 3: Successive Fraction Strategy with Eric/First Search

I decided to repeat my last search using a different search strategy and engine to find any additional or better results. I chose successive fraction strategy because I do not expect to find too many articles on this somewhat narrow topic.

Naïve Question: I would like to implement virtual reference services for my school library. What do I need to know and consider?

Facets	Virtual	Reference services	School library
My initial terms	online, digital		media center
Thesaurus terms	online systems	reference services	school libraries

I was surprised that I could not find any usable subject headings under virtual or digital. There were several for online, but I decided that online systems closest described the virtual reference system.

Search Terms:	Records Retrieved:
Online systems	6, 814
Reference services	2,952
School libraries	5,790

SS1: online systems AND school libraries (all subject phrase search) Results: 118

Notes: Since I am using the successive fraction strategy, I chose the two subject headings that retrieved the most records and searched them together. Already, this narrowed the results drastically, and I am seeing some very useful documents. The following article reveals the students' perspectives on using an online reference service as well as the librarian's view and gives insight on how to use these perspectives to best create a system to serve the patron's needs.

Farmer, S. (2003, Sept.-Oct.). Electronic reference service: a teen's eye view. Knowledge Quest, 32(1), p. 32-33.

SS2: online systems AND school libraries AND reference services (all subject phrase search) Results: 21

Notes: In order to narrow the results further, I added the last search term to the search. This did the trick as my results were whittled down to only 21 documents pertaining to my search. I do not even need to add limiters! The following article emphasizes the need for virtual reference services in schools and outlines the systems of three school libraries.

Brewer, S. (2003). Virtual reference services. Northwest Education, 9(1), p. 7-35.

Reflection: Even though I had never used this strategy before, I found it to be the easiest and quickest search method I have used yet. The most time was spent in searching the thesaurus for the facets and determining which search terms to use.

 

 

Competency 8: Research Visual Multimedia

As a future school librarian and media specialist, I need to understand this generation's relationship with media. This information allows school librarians to know what skills the students probably already have and what they need in order to successfully function in a media-rich society. Understanding how children and teenagers use media also shows school librarians which areas of their library program need to be strengthened in order to reach students and engage their interests.

While browsing Google for statistics on media use, I came across the report "Media Use Statistic" from the Media Literacy Clearinghouse website, which provided many statistics on how people of all ages use media today. Included in this report was a graph from the Kaiser Family Foundation's 2010 study M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds. This graph is interesting to me because it compares media usage by young adults today with five years ago and ten years ago. Obviously, computer use has risen while print media declined. What is truly astonishing is the number of hours young adults are exposed to various forms of media in the day. This is proof of how important media literacy is in education.

I retrieved this graph from http://www.frankwbaker.com/mediause.htm. The original graph and full study belongs to Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and can be found at http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf.

Competency 6, Search 2: Pearl Growing Strategy with Library Lit.

This is the strategy I tend to use the most as I am searching. However, I usually start with a building block search and then use the pearl growing strategy to expand or narrow the results. For this search, I will use one article and follow the pearl growing strategy through the whole process. I chose a new question based on virtual reference systems in schools and decided to use the Library Lit. database since its focus is on library issues.

Naïve Question: I would like to implement virtual reference services for my school library. What do I need to know and consider?

To find one good article, I conducted a basic search by typing virtual reference and school libraries in the all-smart search field. I immediately found one article that sounded like a good start. On the abstract page, I found the subject headings and chose those headings as my facets or pearls for the search.

Train, M. (2005). Answers at Your Fingertips: Live Internet Reference for Teachers, Students, Parents, and Library Media Specialists. Knowledge Quest, 33(3), 19-21. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from Library Lit & Inf Full Text database.

Subject Headings: internet/school libraries, school libraries/reference services, reference services/automation

SS1: internet/school libraries AND school libraries/reference services AND reference services/automation (all subject searches) Results: 3

Farmer, L. (2005). Virtual Reference Service for K-12 Students. Knowledge Quest, 33(3), 22-4. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from Library Lit & Inf Full Text database.

Mon, L. (2006). Digital Reference and Ubiquitous Computing in the Classroom. Knowledge Quest, 34(3), 20-3. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from Library Lit & Inf Full Text database.

Notes: I felt like I hit the jackpot! Even though I only retrieved 3 articles, they completely address my question. The first article discusses necessary training for the school librarian as well as student training. The second article focuses on the further training the students need to best use this feature. The third article gives information on what the school librarian should do on a regular basis to manage this feature!

To be sure, I checked the subjects of the additional two articles to see if there was an extra subject I could search. Only the "Digital reference…" (Mon, 2006) article included bibliographic instruction. I decided to go ahead and add it just in case. Obviously, I could not keep the original search sentence because it would only bring up the same one article. I decided to eliminate the broader reference services/automation since it can apply to all libraries.

SS2: internet/school libraries AND school libraries/reference services AND bibliographic instruction (all subject searches) Results: 1

Notes: This search retrieved the same article "Digital reference…" (Mon, 2006). I also tried this search without the internet/school libraries facet and while I retrieved 8 records, no additional useful articles were found. Therefore, I removed bibliographic instruction as a facet.

At this point, I conducted a thesaurus search on all facets to see if there were other related subjects. The first two had no other related subjects while reference services/automation only had telereference as an option. This one did not interest me as it pertains to using televisions.

Though my original three articles are good, I decided to search only the first two facets in an effort to retrieve more documents.

SS3: internet/school libraries AND school libraries/reference services (all subject searches) Results: 5

Notes: This search only added two additional articles. Even though these two articles are written by the same author and are somewhat outdated, I am especially pleased to find the second article because it addresses what a school librarian needs to consider (patron's needs, available sites, etc.) when building the library's webpage. However, I still want to make sure I find all pertinent articles. Can I find more pearls? I will attempt to broaden the search further by only looking at the most applicable facet.

Safford, B. (1996). The once and future role of the Internet in reference service and information retrieval. School Library Media Activities Monthly, 12, 39. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from Library Lit & Inf Full Text database.

Safford, B. (1996). Ready reference on the internet: suggested categories for your library's home page. School Library Media Activities Monthly, 12, 45-46. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from Library Lit & Inf Full Text database.

SS4: school libraries/reference services (subject search) Results: 127

Notes: Naturally, these articles include all aspects of reference services and most do not deal with an online system. I decided to check the abstracts of the first page's results. By doing this, I found two additional subject headings regarding electronic reference books, both evaluation and acquisition. These would be important issues for a school librarian to consider when starting a virtual reference system. I will add those to my other facets to see if any more articles can be retrieved.

SS5: school libraries/references services AND (internet/school libraries OR electronic reference books/evaluation OR electronic reference books/acquisitions) (all subject searches) Results: 7

Notes: Basically, I have retrieved the same five earlier articles with two additional ones that address electronic reference books. However, I feel that these are valid because electronic reference materials are definitely something to be considered when creating a virtual reference system.

(2009). Reference Question. The School Librarian's Workshop, 30(2), 15. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from Library Lit & Inf Full Text database.

Reflection: I am satisfied with the resulting articles as they address several aspects of implementing a virtual reference system in a school library including planning, training, and maintenance. Both the online aspect and references services are addressed in those articles. I found the pearl growing strategy to be very useful because you are given concrete subject headings to work with from the beginning of the search. In addition, Library Lit's thesaurus was very beneficial both to the question and the process due to its subject matter and indexing.

Competency 7: Image

I found this picture by typing in kids reading books on the image search at www.dogpile.com. The picture is actually from Kids Book Blog, which is a blog that allows kids to write reviews for books. I love this idea, and I love that the image shows the kid's enraptured expression as they are enlightened by the contents of the book. As a future school librarian, I believe that educators and librarians should work together to create a love of reading in students.

Kids Book Blog: http://kidsbookblog.edublogs.org/book-review-database/

Competency 6, Search 1: Building Block Search with LexisNexis

I wanted to try a search with LexisNexis because I have not used it much, but the educational nature of my usual naïve question does not fit in with the business/medical nature of this database. Therefore, I decided to try a different search question that relates to the medical field.

Naïve Question: What evidence is there about vaccines causing autism in children?

To conduct this search, I first pinpointed the facets vaccines, autism, and children. However, I decided to eliminate children since vaccinations are usually given to children. Therefore, I created my search grid by choosing vaccines and autism as my initial facets. I found additional subject headings by using the index term search option under power search.

Facets	vaccines	autism
My initial search terms	shots, immunizations	autism
Index terms	vaccines, MMR vaccine, vaccinations & immunizations	autism

Other interesting index terms: research reports, case studies, drug safety (will probably add in an additional facet to include these terms since they do not fit under vaccines or autism)

All searches are conducted as a power search using the terms and connectors search option. The default setting for sources is major world publications unless noted otherwise.

SS1: (vaccin! AND autism) Results: over 3,000

Notes: I decided to use vaccin! because that would represent all three of my index terms under vaccines. Since there were over 3,000 results, I received a screen asking me to edit my search. When I began looking at the index terms I had an idea that I would need to add another facet due to some of the other interesting and relevant index terms I found under vaccines and autism. I did not add them to vaccine or autism because using them in a Boolean search with those facets using the connector OR would not have represented the relationship between those terms I am seeking. In other words, I do not want articles about vaccines or drug safety in regards to autism. That would yield completely different results. Instead, I will add an additional facet for evidence.

Facets		vaccines		autism	evidence
My initial search terms		shots, immunizations		autism
Index terms		vaccines, MMR vaccine, vaccinations & immunizations		autism	drug safety, research reports, case studies

SS2: (vaccin!) AND (autism) AND (drug safety OR research reports OR case studies) Results: 1,500

Notes: This definitely narrowed it down and is yielding good results. However, there are still many strange articles based on research or studies that do not mention vaccinations and only mention autism in passing; however, they are still indexed under those terms. That is frustrating. At this point, I think it is important to go ahead and apply some limiters. I will narrow the default sources setting from major world publications to full text medical journals in order to retrieve reliable sources that have been reviewed.

SS3: (vaccin!) AND (autism) AND (drug safety OR research reports OR case studies) limited to full text medical journals, combined-- Results: 34

Notes: This is a great number of documents to work with. However, I am finding that the most recent pertinent articles are from 2003 and 2005.

Nelson, K. (2003) Thimerosal and autism? American Academy of Pediatrics, 111. p. 674-679.

Colgrove, J. & Bayer, R. (2005) Could It Happen Here? Vaccine Risk Controversies And The Specter Of Derailment; A successful immunization system depends mostly on people's willingness to have themselves and their children vaccinated. Health Affairs.

On an important medical topic such as this, I would also want to provide the patron with more recent articles. However, I do feel that it is important to keep the sources limited to medical journals. As a result, I will broaden my search statement and limit the results to the last five years.

SS4: (vaccin!) AND (autism) limited to full text medical journals, combined and to the last five years--Results: 22

Notes: This search did provide more recent hits, but they were not as relevant to the search as the older documents retrieved from the last search. This may be due to the database's turnaround time for uploading medical journaIs. At this point, I would probably try another database because of the importance of using reliable sources. However, our instructor made the valid point that most patrons will be looking for medical information written in layman's terms. Therefore, it would be worthwhile to expand the limiters to allow other sources while still keeping the dates extremely current. This will allow for more recent materials.

SS5:
(vaccin!) AND (autism) AND (drug safety OR research reports OR case studies) sources set to major world publications and limited to last six months--Results: 78

Associated Press (2010, March 13). Judge: vaccine, autism not connected. Newsday. Retrieved from LexisNexis Academic on April 24, 2010.

Ogilvie, M. (2010, February 3). Flawed autism study retracted; leading medical journal latest to retract research linking disorder to childhood vaccine. The Toronto Star. Retrieved from LexisNexis Academic on April 24, 2010.

Reflection: With the addition of the final articles, the patron will have the benefit of reading published research as well as more recent updates on the vaccine/autism debate. This will allow the patrons to see for themselves if the recent findings outweigh the case studies of the past. The search itself was difficult to conduct once the limiters were employed because this database has so many options for sources. This does allow, however, for a wide perspective on the searched topics.

 

 

 

Competency 5: Tagging/Indexing

bibliography (4) book lists (8) book recommendations (4) book selection (2) books (22)
books about books (26) books and reading (6) children (9) children's (5) children's literature (13) librarianship (2) libraries (3) lists (6) Nancy Pearl (3) non-fiction (44)
parenting (2) pearl (3) professional (3) read (6) reader's advisory (13) reading (18)
recommendations (8) reference (28) resource (2) signed (6) teen (9) wishlist (7) YA (12)
young adult (11) young adult literature (5)

http://www.librarything.com/work/2109865

Book Crush: For Kids and Teens - Recommended Reading for Every Mood

by Nancy Pearl

I searched reading on http://www.librarything.com/ and found this interesting looking book that recommends book titles for every age of kid. It also includes descriptions of each book. This would be a great resource for all school librarians when looking for appropriate books to add to their collections or recommend to students. It would also be a good resource to directly share with students (and their parents too) who are looking for great books yet are unaware of what is out there.

Library Literature/Books in Print

For this search assignment, I'll be keeping my original naïve question and using two different databases—Library Literature and Books in Print.

Naïve Question: How can I build interest in reading for the students of my school library?

Library Literature

Facets	reading	build interest	secondary students
My initial terms	literacy	interests, motivation	youth, young adults, teenagers, children
Thesaurus terms	children's reading, reading, young adults' reading, literacy, reading interests	reading incentive programs, school libraries/book programs, reading motivation	school libraries/high school

Notes:

1. I am using the thesaurus tab to search out subject headings for each facet. While searching for the first facet "reading," I found no reference to school libraries, reinforcing that the focus of this database is not education.
   
2. I found "reading interests" and "young adults' reading" when I clicked on "literacy." I love finding subject headings like "reading interests" that ties together a huge portion of my search.
   
3. I spoke too soon about finding education-related articles; as I was searching for the facet "motivation," I found "school libraries/book programs" when I clicked on "reading incentive programs." Maybe I can tie in students and youth together under the secondary students facet. I will also include children since young adults are often categorized with children.
   
4. I definitely could not find anything under secondary students or high school student. However, when I searched under high school, I did find "school libraries/high school." I decided to include it since my focus is on secondary school libraries.
   
5. As I am searching more under the secondary students facets, I am finding that even with youth or young adults, I am receiving mostly articles about awards. In fact, after searching all of the initial terms, I am still unhappy with the results. The subject headings focus more on services and access. I may end up eliminating this facet since the other two facets include young adults and children.

SS1 (children's reading OR reading OR young adults' reading OR literacy OR reading interests) AND (reading incentive programs OR school libraries/book programs OR reading motivation) AND (school libraries/high school) (all subject fields)

Results: none

Notes:

1. I was afraid this would happen if I left in the last facet since it was so limiting. I will try it with only the first two facets.
   

SS2 (children's reading OR reading OR young adults' reading OR literacy OR reading interests) AND (reading incentive programs OR school libraries/book programs OR reading motivation)

Results: 121

Notes:

1. 
   This definitely expanded my search. I found that most of the articles use the subject fields "children's reading" and "reading incentive programs." Also, the "school libraries" subject field that I eliminated with the entire last facet still appeared on some records, so I do not feel so bad about eliminating that.
   
2. Just out of curiosity, I eliminated "children's reading" to see if it would narrow the results to only young adults. It still brought up the same 121 records.
   
3. Here is the citation for one example article:
   Small, R., et.al. (May 2009). Reading incentives that work: No-cost strategies to motivate kids to read and love it! School Library Media Activities Monthly, 25(9). 27-31.
   

Books in Print

Facets	reading	build interest	secondary students
My initial terms	literacy	Interests, motivation	Youth, young adults, teenagers
Thesaurus terms	Reading, reading (secondary), literacy, young adults books and reading	Motivation, interest,	high school students, youth, young adults, teenagers

Notes:

1. Under the browse feature of the Books in Print home page, I found that you can find subject headings by clicking on subjects and then typing in the search term. The drawback is that you cannot expand on the headings that are brought up on the screen. Therefore, my thesaurus terms are pretty close to my original terms.
   
2. There was nothing under secondary students, so I went with "high school students." Under young adults, I found "young adults-books and reading." This seemed more appropriate under the reading facet, so I moved it.
   

SS1 (reading OR reading (secondary) OR literacy OR young adults-books and reading) AND (motivation OR interest) AND (high school students OR youth OR young adults OR teenagers) (all subject fields) (limited to English language)

Results: 7

Notes:

1. I am so surprised that I was only able to find 7 records. Honestly, only about half of the books look like they fit what I am looking for.
   
2. I did find "youth books and reading" and "reading interest" in the few appropriate records I did view. However, adding those terms to the reading and motivation facets did not change the results.
   
3. I cannot find any citations that use motivation or interest as a subject heading, so I will eliminate that facet.
   

SS2 (reading OR reading (secondary) OR literacy OR young adults-books and reading) AND (high school students OR youth OR young adults OR teenagers) (all subject fields) (limited to English language)

Results: 455

Notes:

1. Now I need to narrow my search! Since my focus is on students, I will use only "high school students" as a term under my last facet.
   

SS3 (reading OR reading (secondary) OR literacy OR young adults-books and reading) AND (high school students) (all subject fields) (limited to English language)

Results: 16

Notes:

1. This is a little better but still may be too narrow. I did notice that some trade papers are included. I do not know if I need to limit it to books.
   
2. One citation example is:
   Reeves, A. (2003). Adolescents talk about reading: Exploring resistance to and engagement with text. USA: International Reading Association.
   

Competency 4: RSS Feed

I have included an RSS feed from School Library Journal's website. It is titled School Library Journal--Tools and Trends News. This is obviously important to me because I am interested in becoming a school librarian but also because the school librarian's "tools and trends" are constantly changing. Especially in a school environment, librarians need to be aware and proficient in the everchanging resources available. Most of the submitted articles are written by librarians and education professionals, so they provide first-hand experience with using new ideas and implementing new technologies. This RSS feed will help me keep track of the new ideas and tools available to implement in my future school library. This feed is available at
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/SchoolLibraryJournal-LibraryToolsAndTrendsNews

Eric/WorldCat Competency

Naïve Question: How can I build interest in reading for the students of my school library?

This question is fundamentally important to any school librarian because literacy is directly related to student achievement. Students who read more on average tend to be more successful in the classroom and on achievement tests because they have a higher level of comprehension. However, most children and teens are attracted to audio-visual media and computer-based entertainment rather than reading books. As a future school librarian, I am continually researching methods and ideas to get students into the library and interested in reading a variety of materials.

ERIC

Facets	reading	build interest	school library, students
My Initial Search Terms	literacy, books	motivate, encourage, promote	school media center, secondary students, teenagers, adolescents
Thesaurus Terms	independent reading, recreational reading, functional reading, literacy education, reading skills, reading, literacy	motivation, reading motivation, literature appreciation, reading interests, student motivation, student interest, teacher influence	students, high school students, middle school students, secondary school students, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Notes:

1. I underlined the three words or phrases I chose as my facets and created the chart accordingly.
   
2. When I saw functional reading as a subject heading under "reading," I thought I should expand it to find out more what it meant. As a result, I also found literacy education and reading skills which I believe can be tied into creating student interest in books. Students who are confident and comfortable with their reading skills will be more likely to read.
   
3. Apparently verbs do not work well in ERIC/First Search as subject headings because I received no records for each of my facets. I tried motivation instead and found the thesaurus terms listed in the table under "build interest." Literature appreciation and reading interests came from expanding reading motivation, and student interest and teacher influence came from expanding student motivation.
   
4. I found no records under school library or school media center, nor was there really anything usable under library pertaining to a school library. That is when I realized I was focusing on the wrong facet. My last facet should refer to the audience or recipient of the assistance—students. I added this to my chart in red to show that it was added later. The more I thought about it, I realized that I was mostly interested in secondary students—middle school and high school—rather than elementary students. I added that focus to my initial search terms. Youth was found from expanding adolescents.
   

Boolean Search Sentence

SS 1 (independent reading OR recreational reading OR functional reading OR literacy education OR reading skills OR reading OR literacy) AND (motivation OR reading motivation OR literature appreciation OR reading interests OR student motivation OR student interest OR teacher influence) AND (students OR high school students OR middle school students OR secondary school students OR teenagers OR adolescents OR youth) (all subject field)

Results: 1,784

Notes:

1. I obviously need to narrow it down. I am noticing that the search will pull out words like skills from my search without keeping it with the original phrase reading skills. I wonder what I will get if I run the same search with quotation marks around each search term?
   
2. I tried adding the quotation marks, and it only narrowed it down to 1,674.
   
3. I have decided to narrow the first facet to independent reading and recreational reading since I am mainly interested in motivating students to supplement their education with reading outside of school. I will also narrow my second facet to motivation, interest, and teacher influence. I am keeping teacher influence because I believe a librarian carries the same role as a teacher in influencing students, and I am curious what articles this term might yield. The third facet can also be narrowed by keeping only the specific students I would be serving in a secondary school setting.
   

SS 2 (independent reading OR recreational reading) AND (motivation OR interest OR teacher influence) AND (high school students OR middle school students OR secondary school students) (all subject fields)

Results: 46

Notes:

1. I am sure that I could narrow this even further, but most of the articles are exactly what I am seeking.
   
2. Example citation:
   

   Clark, R. (2007). Get controversial! Edgy novels for older teens. Library Media Connection, 25(7). 30-31.
   

   This article is just one example of some of the great articles retrieved from this search. This one is especially pertinent because it recognizes that high interest books will more likely bring teenagers disinterested in reading into the library.
   

WorldCat

Facets	reading	build interest	secondary students
My Initial Search Terms	literacy, books	motivate, promote, encourage	teenagers, adolescents
Thesaurus Terms	reading, books and reading	reading interests, reading promotion	High school students, teenagers, youth

Notes:

1. I am using the same initial naïve question from the first search. I decided to leave "build interest" as a facet just to see if WorldCat is the same as ERIC. I will probably end up changing it to motivation. I did change the last facet from the initial search in order to reflect the audience of the desired search outcome.
   
2. WorldCat is the same as ERIC in its results for my second facet and all initial search terms. When I plugged in the word interest, it gave me banking and financial terms. I tried interests, and it gave me reading interests and reading promotion, which I also found when I expanded books and reading for the first facet. I decided to move those over to the build interest column since it fits and because I was unable to find any other good search terms. Even the term motivation yielded nothing that I felt I could use for this search.
   

Boolean Search Sentence

SS1 (reading OR books and reading) AND (reading interests OR reading promotion) AND (high school students OR teenagers OR youth) (all subject fields)

Results: 235

Notes:

1. One thing I noticed is that most of the resources retrieved from this search were books. I only received one article. However, after scanning each title, I concluded that pretty much most of them would be beneficial to answering my initial question. Perhaps in a further search, I could limit the publication date to make sure I was receiving updated material.
   
2. Retrieved topics included finding books of interest for teenagers (including teenage boys), creating reading activities (like booktalks), and building student panels for book reviews.
   
3. Here is an example citation:
   

   Gomberg, K. C. (1987). Books appeal: Get teenagers into the school library. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland.
   

   The title says it all, showing that this search led to specific materials to address the original naïve question.
   

Competency 3: Educational Technology Podcast

For me the most daunting aspect of the school librarian's role is as the media specialist. In most schools, the librarian provides education not only to the students but to the teachers as well in terms of how to use technology to supplement and facilitate learning. As a result, I tend to look for resources that give ideas and examples for how to incorporate media and technology into the classroom and library settings. One resource is a series of podcasts I happened to find on the reference list of an article suggested by my professor "Podcasting 101 for K-12 Librarians." This podcast www.nausetschool.org/podcasts.htm is managed by the Nauset school district's administrator for technology Kathy Schrock, and it provides podcasts from many educators about incorporating different forms of technology into the educational setting. Topics are very specific and practical, ranging from using basic search engines for research to using technology to provide homework assistance. This is a great resource for any school librarian to use in his or her library and as a tool for collaboration with teachers.


Eash, E. K. (2006). Podcasting 101 for k-12 librarians. Information Today, Inc., 26(4).

Competency 2: Related Blog

This week's competency requires a blog that relates to my chosen field of school librarianship. I primarily used the Google Blog search at http://blogsearch.google.com and was very frustrated with the results. Most of the blogs were by school librarians meeting a specific need within their individual schools. They were lacking the practical applications and strategies I am constantly seeking as an aspiring school librarian. A classmate shared that she finds the best blogs by finding an appropriate blog or website and checking out all of the recommended blogs on that site. This ended up being the route I followed to complete this assignment.

I discovered the blog Media Infusion through PBS Teachers on the PBS website. It appeals to me because I believe in the school librarian's role as the campus media specialist, and this site provides media connections for all major subject areas. The authors range from teacher experts to educational leaders for PBS, thus giving its readers insight into best practices from the field as well as resources available through PBS and online.

One such contributor is Michael LoMonico, Senior Consultant on National Education for the Folger Shakespeare Library, who includes strategies for incoroporating Web 2.0 in the classroom when teaching Shakespeare's plays. The following is an excerpt from his post "Mashups, Remixes, and Web 2.0: Playing Fast and Loose with Shakespeare."

Today, advances in technology have given Shakespeare teachers excellent tools to help
students explore the texts more closely. These Web 2.0 tools empower students and give
them real-world tasks that they can post for the whole world to see...


Illuminating a passage from a play with hypertext is a basic way to get students to do a
close reading of a passage. In the process of selecting and hyperlinking the perfect image,
audio or video clip, or Website, students tell me that they focus on the words in the text in a
way they never would by merely reading it. Here’s one for King Lear. I’ve created a short
demo on how to create hypertext for those who need it.

Using Pixton to create scenes from a play is a simple way for students to explore
Shakespeare’s texts in a graphic format. Using Pixton’s built-in graphics and templates, the
user can make the most subtle facial expressions, as well as detailed hand and body
positions. Here’s a passage from Macbeth created by one of my students. Comic Life allows
students to create similar graphics using their own photos, though it is not free.

This blog does have the option for an RSS feed and can be accessed through the PBS website or directly at http://www.pbs.org/teachers/mediainfusion/.

Competency 1: Purpose

The purpose of this blog is to demonstrate some of the competencies beneficial to the librarian profession and required by the class Information Storage and Retrieval. In addition, this blog provides the opportunity to share useful information and ideas with classmates who are also pursuing careers as librarians. My focus is on the school library. As a future school librarian, I am interested in learning more about how the resources of a school library can further enrich each student's education and love of reading.