Competency #6d – Databases – Citation Pearl Search

For this last search, I conducted a citation pearl search in Books in Print. I selected a citation I had found in Library Lit database:

Light and Lively Reads for ESL, adult, and teen readers: a thematic bibliography. By Rosow, L.V. Libraries Unlimited, 1996.

I selected browse by index/title and entered Light and Lively Reads for ESL, adult, and teen readers: a thematic bibliography. While I didn’t find this specific title, I DID find 2 other entries right next to where the first title would have been. Both of these began with the same phrase as my search title, “Light and Lively….” Hoping it wasn’t a coincidence since they were both by a second author, I clicked on them. YES! Both titles included the general subject heading of Foreign Language Study/English as a Second Language. From that subject heading, I sorted the list by Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC)# and looked for other titles with the same DDC#, 428. I found the following book: English-Spanish Bilingual First Books, ISBN13: 978-1-56674-944-2, published by Forest House Publishing Company, Inc. That citation led me to another general subject heading, Juvenile Nonfiction/Foreign Language Study/English as a Second Language. From there I found the following books published within the last five years:
· Learn Spanish with Batman: Rogues Gallery. By Peterson, S., Slott, D., Templeton, T., et al. Published November 2007 by Berlitz Publishing. ISBN13: 978-981-268-181-2.
· My Filipino Word Book: English - Tagalog – Ilokano. By Fancy, R.L., Welch, V.J., Published February 2007 by Bess Press, Inc. ISBN 13: 978-1-57306-276-3.
· Three Tomorrows. By Brennan, F. Published January 2007 by Cambridge University Press. ISBN 13: 978-0-521-69378-3
· Space Postman/el Cartero Espacial. By Morton, L. et al. Published December 2005 by Barron’s Educational Series, Inc. ISBN 13: 978-0-7641-5875-9.
· The Big Shrink Play. By Hayes, R. Published October 2005 by Cambridge University Press. ISBN 13: 978-0-521-67476-8.
· Tales from Longpuddle. By Hardy, T. et al. Published November 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. ISBN 13: 978-0-19-422993-7.

Reflection on Search:
I enjoyed this search. I now know exactly what (DDC) number contains the information I’m interested in. Yes, I could have looked up the DDC#, but this was probably a quicker way to narrow it down. I like this method of searching because you have the knowledge that all the hits you receive will have already been classified as relevant by someone else in the past, and that knowledge alone makes me reconsider some items I would have otherwise skipped over.