Internet

In searching for other internet sources that are pertainant to my blog, I went to Bing.com and searched "florida elementary school library". I found Florida Bible Christian School (http://www.floridabible.org/school/library/elementary.htm), which has direct links to Broward County Kids' Catalog Web Site, eBrary and ProQuest, which students must have a username and password, given to them by the school library, to access. I find this wonderful for showing students how to search other databases instead of having just information about the library, as some school library sites had. I can see using this as the library's home page and then teaching students to search various databases from there.

Visual / Multimedia

Looking for school library graphs and charts, I came across this cable graph. In Milford, MA, they have meetings at Town Hall once a month to discuss issues that residents have. This chart indicates the grants given to various establishments in Milford to have free cable. Most of the money has gone to the schools, and 19% of that money has gone to the Milford High School media center. The website states that,"The infrastructure fund was used to establish wireless internet service in the library, update the MHS and Comcast Studios with digital editing equipment and implement a new bulletin board system for the School Channel." I am so glad to know that the community backs and supports school libraries and the learning process that extends from books into multimedia avenues.

Graph source: http://www.milford.ma.us/cable.htm

Image

Searching for an image in Bing.com, I looked up "pre-kindergarten library" and found this. I chose this image because it shows what an elementary school library could look like. I also liked this image because the school where the image was taken, Ecole Parkside School, says that they include extra student involvement with the library by joining the Library Club where "Students from grades 4, 5 and 6 are invited to assist in the operation of the library at noon and after school. They shelve books and help to process new acquisitions." A very neat way to get students involved!

Library image source: http://www.gppsd.ab.ca/school/parkside/ProgramsServices/Library/Pages/default.aspx

Citation Pearl Growing Search in WorldCat

For this search, since I had to go as specific as possible, first, I chose an article from my previous search: "School Readiness and Pre-Kindergarten Programs" by Nancy McEntire. I used the terms s au=mcentire and s ti=school. I did not recall the name of the journal, so I tried with these two terms first. This produced results, but McEntire, Nancy was not listed in the database. If I, again, go back to other searches, "Science Books & Films' best books for children, 1992-1995 (book review)" from Booklist, may be retrievable in WorldCat. I tried s ti=science, and s pu=booklist. No results. Next I had to try one of the other book reviews, such as the one I found on "Footprints in the Snow" by Beverly Combs, published by Library Media Connection. I tried s ti=footprints, s su=combs and s pu=library and ended up with no results. By just searching "Combs" I could find articles, but none by Beverly Combs. If I took one of my failed results, I could look up the article, "Writing from the heart : inspiration for the writer's heart" by Erica Combs, published in More Heart Than Talent Publishing, Inc. I go back and search s ti=writing, s au=combs and s pu=more. This pulls up the article immediately. I guess if you're going to look for a specific article, it's a lot harder to find the right database that carries it. Using a cross-reference database would have produced better results.

Successful Fractions Search in Library Lit

With the specific facet approach, I didn't have a completely narrow topic to begin with. Now, with the successful fractions search, I will have to purposely narrow by adding facets. To try and change things, I will go backwards from my last search, and begin with "fiction". Undoubtedly that will have a huge number of hits. I search "fiction" and get 5495 hits. If I add the second facet of "books", this will still cause a lot of hits, I'm sure. It does: 2823 hits. Now, when I add on the third, most narrow term I had, "prekindergarten", I end up with 0 hits. I go back and try the spelling again, first with "pre-kindergarten", which does not good, then "pre kindergarten" which leaves me with no hits. I have to eliminate the "pre" and use the word "kindergarten" as my third facet term, and now I have 3 hits. These hits include only abstracts and only articles. However, the third article, "Science Books & Films' best books for children, 1992-1995 (book review)" is a good article to use, if I can find it in full test. Too bad it is over 10 years old though.

Specific Facet First Search in ASC

Since my building block search in ERIC did not give me many books listed for toddlers, I used ASC to find books for those aged students. To search for the facet with the fewest hits first, I chose to look up "prekindergarten" which gave me 468 hits. The second facet I added was "books" which gave me 42 hits. Since some of these are scholarly articles that are about school programs (such as the article, "School Readiness and Pre-Kindergarten Programs" By: McEntire, Nancy), I chose another facet. My next facet term was "fiction". This gave me 4 results of good, books to read in a Prekindergarten classroom: "Footprints in the Snow", "Penguins", "Smelly Peter: The Great Pea Eater" and "The All-I'll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll." These are books reviews that were published in 2007, for the last book and the rest were all published in 2009. This is a good start in creating a Pre-Kindergarten library.

Building Block Search in ERIC

For my Building Block search, I took the query, “What reading books are recommended for Kindergarten students when beginning school?” This search can be narrowed down to s1: reading s2: books s3: kindergarten. I narrowed the search by Education Level: kindergarten as well. I wish to find examples of books that I could use in a school library for kindergarten children.
One of my results is "March of the Penguins: Building Knowledge in a Kindergarten Classroom." While this is an article describing how to teach the same principles of reading strategies with read-alouds and vocabulary building. For a young audience, the visuals along with the words created a tremendous learning tool. The author of the article, Lauren Fingeret, also give information on lessons and tables indicating tested results of those skills.
While this article does not discuss a book, it is quite useful in knowing that I can look for the film and give teachers the lesson plan information. Since Reading strategies go beyond books, I find this a very useful and unexpected search result.

Tagging / Indexing / Cataloging

I searched under "school library" in Library Thing and found this tag cloud:

2001 reads(1) 2004(1) 2007(1) 20th Century(4) 21st c.(1) academic libraries(1) advocacy(1) Australian(2) Autobiography(1) books(1) Books and Reading(2) budgeting(1) censorship(1) collection development(1) copyright(1) database(1) education(5) Fiction(1) gt(1) in(1) information literacy(10) information science(1) intellectual property(1) lesson planning(2) librarians(3) Librarianship(1) libraries(7) library(1) library science(4) management(2) non-fiction(5) public libraries(1) read(1) reading(2) special collections(1) standards(1) teaching(8) technology(1) vintage(1)

The tag cloud and information for "school library" is at the following link: http://www.librarything.com/tag/school+library

Within that search for school libraries, I found a book entitled Library 101: A Handbook for the School Library Media Specialist. This book is a good resource for a career in school librarianship . Another good resource I found was New on the Job: A School Library Media Specialist's Guide to Success, which I would think would serve its purpose in what the title indicates. Having a simple guide to begin your career in school librarianship would be very important to have in your personal library. This book comes highly recommended at Amazon for any first year school librarians, especially elementary school librarians.

RSS

I looked extensively through the ALA RSS feeds list but most of the Children's Literature feeds were only to Wikipedia sites. The updates would only be for changes made to the Wiki site. The RSS feed for the ALSC is not working for that Wiki so I chose to search for "children's literature library blog rss" in Google. There I came across the site that I used my first relevant blog post on, which is the ESSL Children's Literature Blog. I have added this blog's RSS feed to my sidebar.
http://www.library.illinois.edu/blog/esslchildlit/index.xml
Having a list of books that is theme appropriate for all ages is a wonderful resource for a school librarian. Since there is a vast difference between a 7th grader and a 12th grader at a junior/senior high school, having these kinds of book lists handy will help find material for students of various age groups and reading levels.

Podcast

Using iTunes store, I searched for "library" in the podcasts and found "Cool Tools for Library 2.0". As the introduction stated, this podcast is mainly for educational purposes and shows what kinds of tools to use in the classroom and the school media center. For working with students, having new and interesting tools to use to get students engaged in lessons and in what the library has to offer is always essential. It's good to have these kinds of up-to-date posts about new technologies that will work in a school environment. The podcast shows examples and helps the librarian know how to use these kinds of tools for a young audience.

Their blog address is http://cooltoolslibrary2.blogspot.com/

Related Blog

I used Google Blog Search to find the following blog article. It is from the Children's Literature at the Education & Social Services Library. http://www.library.illinois.edu/blog/esslchildlit/archives/2008/08/sibling_rivalry.html
I found this article to have relevance to my blog's theme, as it is important to find books that children can relate to. This article shows a list of various books regarding the theme of sibling rivalry, and lists books for all age groups.
As the article states, "Conflict between siblings is a universal theme. Stories about famous siblings from Cain and Abel to Venus and Serena Williams have captivated people throughout the centuries. The following books explore the frustrations of sharing Mom and Dad's attention, dealing with annoying younger brothers and sisters, and learning to appreciate each other."
Having books available that interest children gets them reading and engaged in the task. This is important, not only for young children who are learning to read and are experiencing a new sibling into the family, but for middle ages and teens as well where these issues are still prevelant, and, perhaps, more difficult.

Initial Post

This blog is for the exploration of information I find regarding young readers in school libraries. As a former teacher, I am interested in learning about how to incorportate my previous experience with my new career. When I complete my Library Science program in December 2010, I will be ready to work in the K-12 level. I enjoy working with children and will be grateful to learn all I can about the needs of young readers.