#6 b - Citation Pearl-Growing Search

Another method of search is the citation pearl-growing or snowball approach search. For this search, I used the Library Literature database. I used the same topic as the last search method.

The results are as follows:

Question: What books are good for elementary children to share with parents?

S1: books or novels

S2: elementary or children

S3: parents or family

S4: S1 AND S2 And S3

After conducting the S4 search, I received 601 hits. I looked through a few of the articles per page for the first 6 pages of results. A common word that I kept seeing, that I didn't even think to add to my list of search words, was literature. I revised my search to include literature as a keyword and received 639 results. The following result uses literature in the Subject(s) listing. Title: The New York Times Parent's Guide to the Best Books for Children. 3rd edition, Revised and Updated

Author: Eden Ross Lipson

Publisher: Three Rivers Press (NY)

Publication Year: 2000

Pages: 530

Physical Description; Illustration

Language of Document: English
ISBN: 0-8129-3018-5 (paperback)

Price: $18

Were I to continue using this search method, my next search modification would be to add either library/librarian or teacher to my search. The book chosen would be an excellent resource for parents, teachers and/or librarians to use. Without realizing it, I have used this method many times when searching for a topic without really knowing the name for the type of search I was using. It works by adding to your results (thus the name: snowballing) but it is narrowing your topic to more specific facets of what you are truly looking for.

#6a - Building Block Search

For this part of the class, we have been asked to perform searches in different databases. For this search, I used the building block method to search the Books in Print database.

Question: What books are good for elementary children to share with parents?

I chose the following facets to perform my search.
s1: books or novels
s2: elementary or children
s3: parents or family
s4: (books or novels) AND (elementary or children) AND (parents or family)

s1 came back with 1810 hits
s2 came back with 13 hits
s3 came back with 3044 hits
s4 returned 1 hit




The above screen shot shows you the one result.
Title: The Complete Idiots Guide to Reading with Your Child
Author: Helen Coronato
Publication Date: August 2007
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Imprint: Alpha Books
Country of Publication: United States
Market: United States
ISBN: 1-59257-661-3
ISBN 13: 978-1-59257-661-6
Item Status: Out of Print (Readily Available)
Binding Format: Perfect
Pages: 318
Price: $14.95 (USD Retail) (Publisher)

This method of searching worked very well for me. This would be a book (even though it is out of print) that I would recommend to parents when selecting books to read with their children. The search worked when combining the facets for narrowing my search.