Competency #8 Internet

I chose this article entitled "Overcoming the obstacle course: Teenage boys and reading" from the Teacher librarian website. The article describes the research related to boys and reading as well as the problem from the point of view of boys. It also goes on to list things that librarians who service teenage boys can do to promote reading and literacy among boys, including a section on recommended fiction and nonfiction books of interest for boys and how to develop a "guy-friendly" library collection. I think this is a fantastic resource for anybody who works or wants to work in a library setting that services young males. This is a very relevant webpage for my topic of teenage boys and the middle school library. I used Google search engine to find this resource. The link to the above resource is: www.teacherlibrarian.com/tlmag/v_30/v_30_3_feature.html

Competency #7 Multimedia

I found this image of a book cover entitled "Boys and Books" by James Maloney through Google Image Search, http://images.google.com/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi. I chose this image because it depicts a book that would be very useful in the quest to improve the reading habits of boys. The description of the book says:
"James Moloney looks at why so many boys reject books and reading, and explains why they need them. He examines the vital role of parents, offering advice on how to create a reading environment for boys at home. With strategies for helping boys of all ages, and filled with anecdotes and practical tips, this is a lively, interesting book that will be of great value to parents and teachers.This new edition includes updated lists of recommended reading."

I think this is a very relevant image for topic of teenage boys and the middle school library.
link to image and original text:
http://www.aate.org.au/bookstore/products_by_letter.php#B

Building Block Search

I used WorldCat for my building block search. I began my search with "adolescent or teen or teenag*" and received 207,318 hits. I then searched "males or boys or gender" and received 306,337 hits. "literacy or reading or phonics" received 599,641 hits. For my 4th set, I combined these three sets with the Boolean operator "And" and produced 344 hits. I further refined my search by limiting the results to the past five years and English language only. It came back with 164 hits which, besides some book reviews, looked promising. A couple of relevant hits were:

Teaching reading to black adolescent males :
closing the achievement gap /
Author: Tatum, Alfred W.

Publication: Portland, Me. : Stenhouse Publishers, 2005

Document: English :

Book

The guy-friendly YA library : serving male teens /
Author: Welch, Rollie James, 1957- Publication: Westport, Conn. : Libraries Unlimited, 2007

Document: English : Book Internet Resource

This search was reasonably useful but, compared to successive fractions, it seems like going
the long way to get to the same destination. I much preferred searching within results than
creating three different search sets and then combining them. It does give you the broadest
search to start with, however, so you have an idea of how many relevant documents there are
in the database.

Citation Pearl Growing

I used Academic Search Complete for my Citation Pearl Growing Search. I looked up an article entitled "Boys Books, Girl Books" that I had found in a previous search. From the subject terms, I chose to search Teacher-librarians. That search produced 536 hits so I narrowed it by adding "boys or males" to the results. I then came up with 8 very relevant hits. Two of the best ones were:

boys are people too: boys and reading, truth and misconceptions.Preview By: Horton, Rosemary. Teacher Librarian, Dec2005, Vol. 33 Issue 2, p30-32, 3p; (AN 19212540)

Overcoming the Obstacle Course: Teenage Boys and Reading.Preview By: Jones, Patrick; Fiorelli, Dawn Cartwright. Teacher Librarian, Feb2003, Vol. 30 Issue 3, p9, 5p; (AN 9066976)

I really thought this was a very practical and natural way to search. I recognized this as a method I have intuitively used throughout my education. It is akin to both reference chasing and looking up a book in the stacks and then scanning the similar books on the shelf around it.

Specific Facet First Search

I performed my specific facet first search in Eric/Ebscohost. My topic is teenage boys and the middle school library. Of the three concepts, "teenage", "boys", and "middle school library", I decided that the most specific was "middle school library". I searched "middle school librar*" and full text only and received 20 hits. Some relevant hits were:

Mystery Solved: One Way To Motivate Middle Schoolers To Read. By: Herder, Deb Den. Book Report, v18 n4 p16,18 Jan-Feb 2000. (EJ608376)


Give 'em What They Want! Reorganizing Your Fiction Collection by GenrePreview . By: Dumas, Elizabeth P.. Library Media Connection, v24 n2 p20-22 Oct 2005. (EJ762294)


This was not a particularly useful search for me. First of all, it is cumbersome to have to figure out which concept in the query is the most specific. Then, you may have a problem of none of your concepts being specific enough to narrow the results down to a workable number. The other problem is that you may pick a concept that is too specific and does not yield enough results to work with.

Succesive Fractions Search

I performed my successive fractions search in Library Lit. I began the search with "school librar* " and received 31, 373 hits. I then searched with the same keywords in the "title only", due to the high number of hits with the keyword in the journal name, and received 5,853 hits. LibLit has a "search within the results" function. I searched S2 and boys or gender or males and received 14 hits. Two of the most promising were:

Andera, S. Graphic Novels in the School Library to Help Promote Literacy for Boys. PNLA Quarterly v. 71 no. 4 (Summer 2007) p. 5-8


Doiron, R. Boy Books, Girl Books: Should We Re-organize Our School Library Collections?. Teacher Librarian v. 30 no. 3 (February 2003) p. 14-16

I found this type of search to be very useful, especially if the database has a user-friendly "search within the results" function. I think successive fractions is the closest to the natural way people tend to narrow down results.

Competency #5 Tagging

For my tag, I chose to search www.librarything.com for tags for "boys, reading". The resource I chose was:

Great books for boys : more than 600 books for boys 2 to 14

by Kathleen Odean

I chose this resource because my chosen topic is teenage boys and the middle school library and I thought this would be an excellent resource for researching books that interest boys of this age in reading. The tags for this resource is as follows:
1) 12(1) 1998(1) 2007 acq.(1) About Children's Books(1) Amazon Wishlist(1) b10(1) Ballantine(1) book lists(4) books about books(2) books and reading(2) boy interests(1) Boys(8) Boys 2-14(1) Boys' Books(1) children(1) children's literature(4) education(1) education reference(1) freb(1) gyermekirodalom(1) Homeschool(2) Kelloggs Box 07337(1) literature(1) no longer owned(1) Non-Fiction(1) Parenting(1) professional(1) professional reading(1) ra(1) reader's advisory(1) reading(4) reference(2) Rene(1) wishlist(1