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.

Competency #6c – Databases – Specific facet first Search

For this next search, I decided to conduct a specific facet search in ERIC/EBSCOhost. I thought I would get pretty good results in this database since ESL is a hot topic in education circles.

My search strings:
S1: Librar*= 59,437 hits
S2: ESL OR EFL OR “English as a foreign language OR “English language learner*” = 10,083 hits
S3: child* OR “young adult*” OR juvenile OR youth OR ya = 294,036 hits

I chose to start with the ESL set since it had the smallest number of results. I decided to restrict it by subject terms, using “Second Language Learning,” “Second Language Instruction,” and “Subject Language Learning.” This narrowed it down to 1,565 hits.

I decided to switch the order of my terms and do a building block search.
S1: ESL OR EFL OR “English as a foreign language OR “English language learner*” = 10,083 hits
S2: S1 AND librar* = 240 hits
S3: S1 AND S2 AND child* OR “young adult*” OR juvenile OR youth OR ya = 57 hits

The best hit was:
Literacy, Access, and Libraries among the Language Minority Population.
By: Constantino, R., 1998. Available through Eric Digest (ED417595)

This book is a collection of scholarly papers on “linguistic minorities and library use” (from abstract).

Some of my other relevant hits were (Periodicals) :
Selecting Books for Spanish-Speaking ESL Students
By Peck, E.
Publication: Library Media Connection, v25 n5 p41 Feb 2007. 1 pp.

Notes from the Teenage Underground: How Audiobooks Helped Us to Listen, Speak, and Earn a Cool Trip.
By: Mardikan, L., Shah, F., Shah, S.
Publication: Voice of Youth Advocates, v24 n5 p345 Dec 2001.

Librarian-Teacher Partnerships: Serving the English-as-a Second-Language Students.
By: Filson, A.H.
Publication: Journal of Youth Services in Libraries, v5 n4 p399-406 Sum 1992.

Embracing Diversity: One with One’s Bold New Partnerships.
By: Van Duyne, M.K., Jacobs, D.
Publication: Wilson Library Bulletin, v66 n6 p42-44,120-21 Feb 1992.

Picture Books and Older Readers: A Match Made in Heaven.
By: Henry, R., Simpson, C.
Publication: Teacher Librarian, v28 n3 p23-27 Feb 2001.

ERIC Digest Articles:
Literacy Acquisition through Literature. Report Series 7.11
By: Langer, J.A., 1997 (ED403587)

Elgin YWCA Family Literacy Project. Curriculum for ESL Parents and Preschoolers.
By, Rickabaugh, S., and others. 1992 (ED348889)

Library Programs, Library Services for Individuals with Limited English Proficiency. Fiscal Year 1987.
By: Neff, E. B.. 1990 (ED330368)

Reflection on Search:
I was very satisfied with this search. I knew that since ERIC was primarily an education issues database, I expected high relevancy and got it. However, the order that search strings are presented in ERIC made a major difference. I found some great articles in my second attempt, the building block search, with citations that I can use for a citation pearl search in another database.

Competency #6b – Databases – Successive Fractions

My second search was in Academic Search Complete Database using a successive fractions search method. My topic again is how to increase public library use for ESL readers in children’s services.

Because I expected my first 2 search strings to yield way too many results, I used the limiters of English only, published since January 2007, and full-text articles only. To start with what I felt was the broadest facet, I chose “children, (young adults), juvenile, youth, ya." I decided to truncate (young adults) into (young adult*) and ‘children’ into ‘child*’. My search string was:

S1: (child* OR “young adult*” OR juvenile OR youth OR ya) = 67,654 hits – way too many, so I went on to S2.

Since this is an academic database instead of library oriented database, I’m adding the term librar* to my S2 search terms for this database. It wasn’t necessary in the Library Lit search because librar* is a more unique term in this database.

S2: S1 AND (librar* OR circulat* OR patron* OR us*) = 26,875 hits – still too many so I went on to S3.

S3: S1 AND S2 AND (ESL or “English as a second language” or “English language learner*”) = 132,480 hits. My number of results is still way too high, so I decided to find a subject term to search within. I entered librar* and selected LIBRARIES -- Cultural programs.

S4: DE “LIBRARIES -- Cultural programs” AND S1 AND S2 AND S3 = 4,267,119 hits. However, among the first 50 hits were these results:

Family Storytimes for New Immigrants Combine Learning and Fun.
By Barry, Evette.
Publication: Feliciter, 2007, Vol. 53 Issue 1, p44-45, 2p

ESL Library Skills: an information literacy program for adults with low levels of English literacy.
By Macdonald, Katrina
Publication: Australian Library Journal, Aug2008, Vol. 57 Issue 3, p295-309, 15p

Language Learning in the Library: An Exploratory Study of ESL Students.
By Bordonaro, Karen
Publication: Journal of Academic Librarianship, Sep2006, Vol. 32 Issue 5, p518-526, 9p

Using Music to Support the Literacy Development of Young English Language Learners.
By Paquette, Kelli; Rieg, Sue
Publication: Early Childhood Education Journal, Dec2008, Vol. 36 Issue 3, p227-232, 6p

New Immigrants, New Challenges: High School Social Studies Teachers and English Language Learner Instruction.
By Cho, Seonhee; Reich, Gabriel A
Publication: Social Studies, Nov/Dec2008, Vol. 99 Issue 6, p235-242, 8p

Reflection on Search:
This was an extremely frustrating search for me. I never could get down to a manageable number of hits, and was ready to go to a different database when I tried the “subject terms” tab. However, this tab took me to a brand new search window and I had to enter my search strings over again. This time I received more hits than with any other search string in this search. I decided that this database is not conducive to a successive fractions search method.

Competency #5 -- Tagging

I used librarything.com to search for “English as a second language” and found 39 tags from 20 users. I selected a resource titled ESL Teacher’s Activities Kit by Elizabeth Claire. I chose this because almost all of the other resources listed under this tag seemed to be more appropriate for a classroom setting than a public library setting.

The tag cloud for ESL Teacher’s Activities is: activity book(1) english as a second language(1) English language learning(1) ESL Adult(1) flashcards(1) food(1) games(1) multiple skill levels(1) reference shelves(1) speaking(1) staff books(1) staff room(1) teaching(1) total physical response(1)

The link to librarything.com’s page on this resource can be found here.

Competency #2 -- Blog

I used GoogleBlog at http://blogsearch.google.com/ . I found Inma Alcázar’s Sharing Learning blog. Ms Alcázar is an ESL/EFL teacher who posts teaching tips, plans, and ideas to her blog on a regular basis. Since we've been discussing this very topic in class this week, one post that really caught my eye was her Web 2.0 tools for ESL/EFL teaching from January 29, 2009, where she discusses how to incorporate Web 2.0 concepts into ESL/EFL classes:

“Nowadays, our students are digital natives, that is, "children who were born into and raised in the digital world", children who spend a lot of time surfing on the net, chatting with their friends, playing computer games... This is not learning, but what about changing this? What about teaching them to use the tools they can find on the net to learn English? I am sure that if every student could use these tools in order to learn English and acquire knowledge, not only at school but also at home, anywhere, his language would improve very quickly.”

This started me wondering what kind of ESL/EFL games my own local library has in their collection.

Inma Alcázar’s Sharing Learning blog can be found at http://myeslcorner.blogspot.com/.

graphic from http://farm1.static.flickr.com/46/141279479_cc71ac4c2e.jpg