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.