Library Literature Search

I chose to continue my search using the same question I posed when completing my World Cat and ERIC searches. I wanted to see what other related information and articles were available for my topic because I am very interested in maintaining open communication with my classroom teachers. I want to plan library lessons that complement the curriculum being taught within the classroom. As a current teacher I am constantly team planning and sharing with my teaching partner and other grade levels through vertical teaming. One of my goals and hopefully strengths as a school librarian will be to use the library as an enrichment tool as well as a research tool for students to use as they extend what has been taught in the classroom.

Naïve Question: As a school librarian how can I improve teacher/librarian collaboration involving curriculum to academically benefit elementary students?

Key Terms/Facets	Teacher/librarian collaboration		Curriculum	Elementary students
My initial terms	Teamwork vertical teaming teacher/media specialist		academics lesson plans	PreK-6th grade primary students grade school
Thesaurus Terms (Subject Headings)	School libraries/Relations with teachers and curriculum Teacher education and the school library Education		School libraries/activity projects Teacher education and the school library	School libraries/Activity projects Children's literature/Evaluation Children's library services

Keyword Searching Notes:

This keyword search did not take as long as the Books in Print. For my first facet I completed five searches. The first one I used teacher/librarian collaboration which found the heading school libraries/relations with teachers and curriculum. The second search using school libraries/relations with teachers and curriculum resulted in a match of teacher education and the school library. My third search using teacher/librarian cooperative came back with zero matches. My fourth search using teacher/librarian teamwork also had zero results. My final search I used collaboration and found education as a subject heading. My second facet search began with lesson plans which resulting with school libraries/activity project. My second search using activities as an initial term gave me several words but none of them were of interest to me. My final search I used curriculum and found the heading teacher education and the school library. My final subject heading search took the most time out of all three. I started with elementary students which had zero results and did students as an initial term. My third search using primary students was successful resulting in school libraries/activity projects. My fourth search using Grade K-6 resulted in children's literature/Evaluation. My final heading search using children resulted in children's library services.

Library Literature provided a search with a larger number of appropriate results. Even though some did not pertain to my naïve question they did offer some new ideas for keywords and subject headings.

Boolean Search:

Teacher/librarian collaboration AND	Curriculum AND	Elementary students
School libraries/Relations with teachers and curriculum OR Teacher education and the school library OR Education	School libraries/Activity Projects OR Teacher education and the school library	School libraries/Activity projects OR Children's literature/Evaluation OR Children's library services

Boolean Search Statement:

(School libraries/Relation with teachers and curriculum OR Teacher education and the school library OR Education) AND (School libraries/Activity projects OR Teacher education and the school library) AND (School libraries/Activity projects OR Children's literature/Evaluation OR Children's library services) (all in subject field)

SS1: (School libraries/Relation with teachers and curriculum OR Teacher education and the school library OR Education) AND (School libraries/Activity projects OR Teacher education and the school library) AND (School libraries/Activity projects OR Children's literature/Evaluation OR Children's library services) (all in subject field)

Results: 88 records

Notes: To me it really seems like too much information is provided in my first search statement. There are a number of hyphens and backslashes that might interfere with acquiring quality results. I think I need to consolidate my subject headings and make them a little more precise.

SS2: (School libraries/Relations with teachers and curriculum OR teacher education and the school library) AND (school libraries/activity projects) AND (children's library service) (all in subject field)

Results: 2 records

Notes: Whoa, I am not sure what happened but obviously I need to rethink my search. The two results have nothing to do with my topic.

SS3: (School libraries) AND (Relations with teachers and curriculum)

Results: 1,609 records

Notes: Obviously I have now made my search too vague-time to rethink once again.

SS4: (School librarians) AND (Relations with teachers) AND (curriculum)

Results: 80 records

Notes: I know this still seems like a large number of results but I did find an article that interests me and really addresses my question. The article advocates librarians and teachers working together to provide quality activities in the library.

Buzzeo, T. (2007). Literacy and the Changing Role of the Elementary Library Media Specialist. Library Media Connection, 25(7), 18-19. Retrieved February 22, 2010, form Library Lit & Inf Full Text database.

This database search did not take as much time as the Books in Print search, although it was harder than using World Cat and ERIC databases. I know that with each database search I am becoming more familiar and hopefully and little less hesitant about using databases as research resources.