Competency #9 -- Relevant website

I used Google.com and entered a search string of ESL AND librar*. The fifth hit was a document from the American Library Association website, titled, "Serving Non-English speakers in U.S. Public Libraries," published in 2007. This document will be very helpful to my project since it contains successful ideas from public libraries all over the country on their ESl programs, resources, and further resources.

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 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.”

Competency #4 -- RSS feed

I added the RSS feed from the Abby (the) Librarian blog. In Abby’s own words, this is “the blog of a new public librarian posting about good books, children's programming, and anything else library or kid-lit related.” New books, old favorites, book reviews, circle time ideas, and children’s literature news – What more could a prospective children’s librarian ask for?

Competency #3 -- podcast

Since my topic is diversity in public libraries and their collections, I found this podcast through youtube by using the three search terms of podcast public library. Youtube showed the original podcast that showed Abilene Public Library patrons how to access the brand new podcasts. However, when I explored their listing of podcasts a little further, I found the podcast titled "01-28-09@the library column" that discusses ways to celebrate diversity, especially since February is Black History Month.

http://aplspace.podomatic.com/

Texas Woman's University

I’m a graduate student in Library Science at Texas Woman’s University. This blog has been created to fulfill requirements for a spring 2009 class: LS 5013 (Information Storage and Retrieval, also known as ISAR). My goal is to work in either Children's or Young Adult Services in a public library. My topic for LS 5013 this semester will be multicultural diversity and ESL activities in the public library setting, especially for children.