Week 7 – WorldCat and More FirstSearch Indexes

1. Searching for a non-fiction book on Martin Luther for 4th and 5th graders, I used advanced search and typed Martin Luther in Keywords and used the next line with not and typed in King. Using the special limiters I chose juvenile and non-fiction .  414 results were returned and I then chose the limiter books.  This reduced the number to 359. I then, used date limiter asking for books from 2000 to 2012. I further reduced the results by choosing English. (I could have done this all at the start of my search and will do so next time, however this is how I conducted my first try ) This reduced the results to 43. I chose "Martin Luther: father of Reformation" by Barbara A. Somervill. This book is 112 pages and has a 2006 copyright. There are many regional holdings for this book, and instate the Watertown Regional Library owns it.

2. In searching for classic novels for my library I chose to search for graphic novels and chose Genre/Form as a limiter.  In the next search box I chose classics, and limited the type to books and fiction. 369 records were found, which should give me a pretty good sampling of books to choose from.  I personally would choose Tom Sawyer, published by Sterling of New York.

3. In helping the local theater director find a vocal score for My Fair Lady, I again used Advanced Search and typed My Fair Lady in the first search box and chose title.  In the second search box I typed in vocal score as a keyword.  Next I limited the type to Musical Scores. 94 English results were returned. I chose the score with the accession number 26429906. 

WEEK 6 – EBOOKS ON EBSCOHOST

    1.  I typed birdwatching in the search box after choosing Visual search. I came up with 12 results and found the book Complete Idiots Guide to Birdwatching.  It took me quite some time to figure out how to actually access the book. You need to click  “more” on the book summary. After I watched the little tutorial (which I should have done first) I tried typing in bird watching (two words).  I came up with 32 results and was then able to make the little connections. By clicking on Georgia Guidebooks the second column came up with two choices, South Carolina Guidebooks and North Carolina Guidebooks, and from there I could choose from two results.   Adventure guide to the Georgia and Carolina Coasts and Adventure Guide to Georgia. I also did a basic search, again just to see the difference and I liked it better for my small result base, however if a student or patron started out with a broad topic such as South Dakota I can certainly see how the visual search would be very handy in winnowing out results. That was a fun assignment!

I 2.  I typed fairy tales in the search box and got 82 results, then clicked on the tab fairy tales on the left side of the screen and got 16 results. No’s 2-6 were the “color fairy tales” that Gramma enjoyed!  They were The Violet Fairy Book, The Blue Fairy Book, Blue Fairy Book. The Yellow Fairy Book, and The Red Fairy Book. The author on all books was Andrew Lang, however on The Violet Fairy Book H. J. Ford was also listed as an author.