Competency: World Cat and ERIC

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

I chose this question because I want collaboration with teachers to be one of my strengths as a school librarian. I have worked in several different schools and within each school I have encountered a variety of librarians who each demonstrate different strengths and weaknesses. As a teacher I feel that my students would benefit more from library use if they understand how to connect what they have learned in the classroom and utilize the library and its contents. I know that with younger students this may be a little more difficult, but by collaborating with the classroom teachers I feel that as a librarian I could find a connection for every grade level. I want students to understand all the uses and services the library provides.

ERIC search

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)	Cooperation Cooperative planning Librarian Teacher Cooperation	Curriculum design Curriculum development Curriculum enrichment	Elementary school students

My first subject search of teacher/librarian collaboration and teacher and librarian collaboration resulted in zero matches. My second subject search of just collaboration resulted in the subject cooperation. My third search with teacher collaboration resulted in cooperative planning. My fourth search with librarian collaboration resulted in zero results. Finally on the fifth search I used librarian cooperation and received the result of Librarian Teacher Cooperation. My first search for curriculum gave me several subject headings which included curriculum design, curriculum development, and curriculum enrichment. My first search for elementary students resulted with elementary school students. I tried to search primary students, PreK-6^th students, grade PreK-6^th and did not find any results.

Boolean Search:

Teacher/librarian collaboration AND	Curriculum AND	Elementary students
Cooperation OR Cooperative planning OR Librarian Teacher Cooperation	Curriculum design OR Curriculum development OR Curriculum enrichment	Elementary school students

Boolean Search Statement:

(Cooperation OR Cooperative planning OR Librarian Teacher Cooperation) AND (Curriculum design OR Curriculum Development OR Curriculum Enrichment) AND (Elementary School Students)

SS1: (Cooperation OR Cooperative planning OR Librarian Teacher Cooperation) AND (Curriculum design OR Curriculum Development OR Curriculum Enrichment) AND (Elementary School Students)(all in subject field)

Results: 66 records

Notes: The list of records was too broad and I didn't find the results that I was looking forward to retrieving.

SS2: (Librarian Teacher Cooperation) AND (Curriculum design OR curriculum development OR Curriculum Enrichment) AND (Elementary School Students)(all in subject field)

Results: 3 records

Notes: I was very pleased with the results of my second subject search. I found exactly what I was looking for in three results. The articles I selected are not as recent as I would like but both focus on integrating the classroom curriculum within the library.

Paglin, C. (2003). Keeping Your Ear to the Ground: Top School Librarians Are Constantly Alert for Ways To Team Up with Teachers. Northwest Education. 9(1), 14-18.

Gold, S. (2005). A Tale of Two Libraries: How Two Library Media Centers Seamlessly Integrate Curriculum, Information Literacy, and Technology. Technology & Learning. 26(3), 28.

World Cat search

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
Thesaurus Terms (Subject Headings)	Teacher participation in curriculum planning	Curriculum planning Curriculum enrichment	School children

My first search for teacher/librarian collaboration came up with zero results. I tried teacher collaboration, library collaboration, teacher librarian collaboration, teacher cooperation, and librarian cooperation and all had zero results. Typing in just teacher I found a variety of results including teacher participation in curriculum planning. Librarian brought up only one result librarian exchange program. Curriculum brought up a number of results including curriculum planning and curriculum enrichment. My final search for elementary students resulted in school children.

Boolean Search:

Teacher/librarian collaboration AND	Curriculum AND	Elementary students
Teacher participation in curriculum planning	Curriculum planning OR Curriculum enrichment	School children

Boolean Search Statement:

(Teacher participation in curriculum planning) AND (Curriculum planning OR Curriculum enrichment) AND (school children)

SS1: (Teacher participation in curriculum planning) AND (Curriculum planning OR Curriculum enrichment) AND (school children) (all in subject field)

Results: 2

Notes: Since librarian was not mentioned in any part of my search neither result was what I was looking for and I decided to change the keywords I used.

SS2: (Librarian OR Teacher participation in curriculum planning) AND (Curriculum planning OR Curriculum enrichment) AND (school children) (all in subject field)

Results: 21 records

Notes: I was much happier with the results of my second search in WorldCat. Of the 21 records there were several books that addressed my question.

Miller, D. P. (2004). The standards-based integrated library: A collaborative approach for aligning the library program with the classroom curriculum. Worthington, Ohio: Linworth Pub.

Copeland, B. S., & Messner, P. A. (2004). Collaborative library lessons for the primary grades: Linking research skills to curriculum standards. Englewood, Colo. [u.a.]: Libraries Unlimited.