Searching Competency Four: Library Literature and Citation Pearl

Database: Library Literature

Search Strategy: Citation Pearl

Initial Question: What techniques are effective in developing successful book clubs for children?

Rationale: For the final of four searching competencies, I chose the Library Literature database, which I had recently used for the first time while searching for resources for my Novice to Expert paper. While using this database, I found it quite user-friendly and thought it had the potential for producing a variety of resources to meet my information needs. I chose to wait until the final searching competency to use the citation pearl strategy because in order to use this strategy, you must first have a resource that has been identified as pertinent to the initial question as a starting point. Waiting until last to use this strategy allowed me to have a variety of records to choose from using the resources I had found in the three other searching competencies.

Known Item: Gelman, Judy, et al. (2007). The kids' book club book: Reading ideas, recipes, activities, and smart tips for organizing terrific kids' book clubs. New York, NY: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated.

I began the citation pearl strategy by selecting a known pertinent record that I had located on a previous search. I did a title search on the resource, and then located the related subject terms associated with the resource.

Related Subject Terms:

• book discussion groups
  
• children's reading/projects
  
• children's book clubs
  
• young adults' reading/projects
  
• school libraries/activity projects
  
• children's reading/Canada
  
• book lists
  
  

I selected the following subject terms from the list that I believed would produce further pertinent results: book discussion groups, children's book clubs, children's reading/projects, and school libraries/activity projects.

Search 1:

• Boolean Statement (Subject Search): (book discussion groups OR children's book clubs OR (children's reading AND projects) OR (school libraries AND activity projects))
  
• Records Retrieved: 3649
  
• Reflection: This search produced far too many results to browse through, I decided to reduce my subject terms by eliminating the 'school libraries/activity projects' facet, as it is not directly pertinent to my initial question.
  

Search 2:

• Boolean Statement (Subject Search): (book discussion groups OR children's book clubs OR (children's reading AND projects))
  
• Records Retrieved: 1324
  
• Reflection: While this search produced significantly fewer results than the first search, there were still far too many records, most of which were not pertinent to my initial question. To further reduce the results, I again eliminated an additional facet, 'children's reading/projects.'
  

Search 3:

• Boolean Statement (Subject Search): (book discussion groups OR children's book clubs)
  
• Records Retrieved: 224
  
• Reflection: Reducing the search terms to only those that were most closely related to my initial question allowed me to retrieve a reasonable amount of records.
  

Pertinent Records Citations:

Saricks, J. (2009). Leading book discussions. Booklist, 106(1), 37.

DeVault, N. (2009). Literature circles in library class. Library Media Connection, 28(1), 24-5.

Saldana, R. (2009). The bilingual book club: A family affair. Teacher Librarian, 36(3), 27-32.

Jones, C. (2009). Hands-on reading: The Pioneer book club. Virginia Libraries, 55(1), 26-8.

Knop, K. (2008). Graphic novels--join the club!. Library Media Connection, 27(3), 40-1.

Beyers, C. (2008). Connecting with students. School Library Media Activities Monthly, 24(6), 48-9.

Hall, S. (2007). How I learned to run a really popular book club (and what I learned about its effect on students' reading skills and attitude). Teacher Librarian, 35(1), 32-6.    

Conclusion: The citation pearl strategy was highly effective in producing pertinent results related to my initial question. The only potential problem I could identify with this method is identifying a known source at the start. Had I not already had several known sources to choose from as a result of my previous searching competencies, I would have had to go through several more steps to identify a known source. However, if, like in my case, one has multiple known pertinent records, the citation pearl strategy would be an efficient method to use in order to locate further resources.