Competency 6a -- Databases -- Building block Search

I chose LibraryLit for my first search, and used a building block search method. My topic is how to increase public library use for ESL readers in children’s services.

My facets for this search are circulation, children, and ESL. The terms for each of these facets are:

• Circulation, patron, user (truncated to circulat*, patron* or us*)
• Children, young adults, juvenile, youth, ya (truncated to child*, young adult*)
• ESL or English as a second language or English language learners (truncated to English language learner*)

Here are the steps for my building block search:
S1: Circulat* OR patron* OR us* = 38568 hits
S2: child* OR (young adult*) OR juvenile OR youth OR ya = 25921 hits
S3: ESL OR (English language learner*) OR (English as a second language) = 79 hits
S4: S1 AND S2 AND S3 = 5 hits.

Results:
Out of those 5 hits, one is a survey of studies done on ESL learners in a school setting and another is a review of an English pronunciation CD-ROM set which specifically states they would NOT recommend the set for English as a second language learners. However, the other 3 hits are relevant to my search. They are all books containing recommended booklists:

Accessing the classics: great reads for adults, teens, and English language learners. By Rosow, L.V. Libraries Unlimited, 2006.

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

Reference books for young readers: authorative evaluations of encyclopedias, atlases, and dictionaries. Edited by Sader, M. Bowder, 1988.

Reflections on Search: Truncation was very effective here, and so was the use of parentheses to enclose multi-word phrases. If I was going to search further at this point, I would check on whether L.V. Rosow has written anything else, and within the thesaurus heading of “Immigrants/Reading.”