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.