Specific Facet First Strategy
database: Library Literature and Information Science database
Query: I am a first year elementary school librarian and I would like to learn how to teach elementary school students how to research information. What resources can I use that would help me teach research skills in an elementary school library?
Facets from query
facet 1: teach
facet 2: research skills
facet 3: elementary school library
Synonyms for facets
facet 1: teaching, instruction, lessons
facet 2: information literacy, library skills
facet 3: school library media center
subject terms
facet 1: bibliographic instruction/elementary and high school students, school libraries/activity projects,
facet 2: research techniques/teaching
facet 3: school libraries/elementary schools
subject search records results
bibliographic instruction/elementary and high school students -
1294 records
school libraries/activity projects - 2358 records
research techniques/teaching - 239 records
school libraries/elementary schools - 35 records
research techniques/teaching and school libraries/elementary schools have the smallest retrieval sets, so I combined them first.
search statement 1
su=(research techniques/teaching) AND (school libraries/elementary school)
results: zero records
search statement 2
su=(research techniques/teaching) AND (bibliographic instruction/elementary and high school students)
results: 49 records
WOW! This is a good retrieval set. There were many records that fit the query.
Citations:
Eisenberg, M. (2003). Implementing Information Skills: Lessons Learned From the Big6 Approach to Information Problem-Solving. School Libraries in Canada, 22(4), 20-3.
Hughes, S. (2003). The Big6 as a Strategy for Student Research. School Libraries in Canada, 22(4), 28-9.
Duncan D. and Lockhart L. (2000) I-Search, you search, we all learn to research: a how-to-do-it manual for teaching elementary school students to solve information problems. New York, NY: Neal Shuman Publishers, Inc.
Reflection:
I liked using this strategy. It let me know how many records for each facet alone and I can combine the most specific facets first to see what kind of retrieval sets it come up with. Once I had the best subject terms possible for all the initial facets and synonyms, the retrieval set was so much better.
I tried the following search statement and the retrieval set consisted of only 6 records of which only 1 was relevant to the query.
search statement 3
su=(research techniques/teaching) AND (school libraries/activity projects)
I also tried a building block strategy using all the subject terms just to see what kind of retrieval set I would get.
search statement 4
su=(bibliographic instruction/elementary and high school students OR school library/activity projects) AND (research techniques/teaching) AND (school libraries/elementary schools)
results: zero results
I can see how this strategy is useful if an initial Boolean statement using the building block strategy has zero results.
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