St. Catherine’s School

Middle School Library Skills

Grade 5: General Library Instruction / 1 day a week

Grade 6: Special Library Units taught in October & November

Point of Use Instruction

Grade 7: Point of Use Instruction

Grade 8: Point of Use Instruction

Gr. 5: Terms to Know Circulation

PAC Terminals

Dewey Decimal Classification System

Call NumberClassification NumberAuthor or Cutter Number

StacksFictionNon-FictionNon-Print

Reference MaterialsEncyclopedias (general & subject)DictionariesAtlasesHandbooks, Guides, Almanacs

PeriodicalsCurrentBoundMicrofiche

Indexes

Online DatabasesEncyclopediasOther Reference Periodicals

Carrels

OUTSIDE

Front, Back, Spine, Spine Label (with call number)

INSIDE

Front / Beginning of the book

Title Pagetitle of the booksubtitle of the bookname of author or editorname of publisherplace of publication

Verso Page (backside of title page)copyright datecataloging information

Table of Contents

Gr. 5: Parts of a Book

Back / End of the book

AppendixBibliographyCreditsTables / Charts

Glossary

Index

1st letter of Hundreds Division name / mnemonic word Division Name

0 G oodGeneralities

1 P eople Philosophy

2 R elax-with Religion

3 S ome Social Sciences

4 LA te Language

5 N ight Natural Sciences

6 T v (or television) Technology

7 A nd Arts

8 LI corice Literature

9 G ummy Geography and & H earts History

Gr. 5: Mnemonic for Dewey (10 major divisions)

Title of Item: Victorian EnglandAuthor’s Name: Clarice SwisherDewey #: 941.081 Special Collection: no

Title of Item: Victorian EnglandEditor’s Name: Clarice Swisher, ed.Dewey #: 941.081Special Collection: no

Title of Item: The Illyrian Adventure Author’s Name: Lloyd Alexander Dewey #: noneSpecial Collection: Fiction

Title of Item: Dictionary of First Names

Author’s Name: Patrick HanksDewey #: 929.4403Special Collection: Reference

Gr. 5: Call Numbers

941.081 SWI

941.081 VIC

FicALE

REF929.4403 HAN

The PAC terminals are your access to an electronic catalog.

Here’s how it works:

The PAC terminals are electronically connected to a DATABASE file that contains all of the materials that are in the library.

The database file is made up of RECORDS; there is one record for every item that the library owns and has cataloged. The individual “bibliographic” record for each item of the database found by

searching the PAC terminals is called the BIB SCREEN.

Every record is made up of FIELDS or categories of information; some records have only three or four fields, but other records may have well over twelve fields.

Gr. 5: PACs/Parts of the BIB Screen

AUTHOR CALL NUMBER COLLATIONEDITION IMPRINT ISBNSERIES STATUS SUBJECTSUMMARY TITLE

KEYWORD (many fields) searches every word of the major fields of every record in the database looking for a match

AUTHOR’S (Last) NAME (named field) searches only the author field of every record to find an exact match: remember that you are searching for the author’s LAST NAME, so you must type the last name of the author first; also, the first word of the field must be the same first word that you type

TITLE KEYWORD (named field) searches only the title field of every record to find a match anywhere in the field

SUBJECT KEYWORD (named field) searches only the subject field of every record to find a match anywhere in the field

SERIES NAME KEYWORD (named field) searches only the series field of every record to find a match anywhere in the field

CALL NUMBER (named field) searches only the call number field of every record to find an exact match

Gr. 5: Search Options & Strategies

BOOLEANOPERATORS

and = blank space

or = (term1 term2)

TRUNCATION

stem?

DATABASE: Student Physical Descriptors

Record #NameGenderEyes Hair Height

1 Eliza girl blue brown short2 Elroy boy brown brown medium3 Nick boy brown brown tall4 Beth girl green blond tall5 Liam boy blue red short6 Neil boy hazel blond short7 Franny girl green red tall8 Anne girl blue blond tall9 Cate girl hazel blond short10 Paul boy brown blond medium11 Tim boy blue brown tall12 Delia girl brown brown medium

Pretend that you are doing a KEYWORD search of the database above. List the record #s which match each of the following searches; if there are no records that match a search strategy, write the words, “No Matches” :

1. girl blue blond tall 2. (girl blue blond tall)8 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

3. boy blue red tall 4. (boy bl? br? short)no matches 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

5. brown green 6. (brown green) girlno matches 1, 4, 7, 12

7. short 8. red (short tall) 1, 5, 6, 9 5, 7

1. I can’t remember who wrote The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, but I really enjoyed it and want to read other books by this author. Can you help me find out who wrote this book?

SEARCH OPTION: title keywordSEARCH STRATEGY: woman rides man

2.Oh! That’s right! It was Tamora Pierce who wrote that book. Does this library have any other books that she’s written?

SEARCH OPTION: author’s last nameSEARCH STRATEGY: pierce t

3.Gosh! Looking at this list of books that she’s written, I remember that Tamora Pierce wrote a series of books called the Song of the Lioness. I’m not sure that I’ve read them all. Can you tell me what other books are in this series?

SEARCH OPTION: series keywordSEARCH STRATEGY: song lioness

4. I have to do a report on dogs, specifically the Belgian shepherd or the German shepherd. Does this library have any information at all that might help?

SEARCH OPTION: keywordSEARCH STRATEGY: (belgian german) shepherd

5. I have to select a topic about myths or mythology for a report in Mrs. Carlisle’s class. I don’t know where to begin. Can you help me find a list of topics so that I can choose one to research?

SEARCH OPTION: subject keywordSEARCH STRATEGY: myth?

SEARCH OPTIONS & STRATEGIES: Putting It All Together

Gr. 5: Alphabetizing Letter-by-LetterThis method basically smushes together all of the words in a name or a title or a subject heading and then treats the result as one big word; each letter is looked at in the order in which it appears so as to determine how to alphabetize that particular item.

For example, the titles Frontiersmen and Frontiers of Life would be considered as follows:

f r o n t i e r s m e nf r o n t i e r s o f l i f e

Going letter-by-letter, each item is identical for the first nine letters. The tenth letter of one isan “m,” and the tenth letter of the other is an “o.” Since “m” comes before “o” in the alphabet, Frontiersmen would come before Frontiers of Life using the letter-by-letter method.

Word-by-Word (most used)This method of alphabetizing takes into consideration the blank spaces between words. Just as “a” comes before “b” in the alphabet, a “blank space” comes before “a.”

For example, when considering the two titles Frontiersmen and Frontiers of Life, the first nine letters are identical. However, there is a blank space after the ninth letter of one and the letter “m” after the ninth letter of the other:

f r o n t i e r s m e nf r o n t i e r s o f l i f e

Since a “blank space” is considered before any letter, Frontiers of Life would come beforeFrontiersmen when using the word-by-word method.

Gr. 6:OnlineDatabasesGrolier MultimediaEncyclopedia

EncyclopediaAmericana

eLibrary & SIRs

ProQuest

CultureGrams /Lands & People /Popular Science

Gr. 6: The Internet Search Directories (Yahoo) v. Search Engines (Google)

Google Search Features (10,600,000 hits to 11 hits)

default boolean operator = and (invisible)

other boolean operators available = OR

“ words inside quotes ” = to search for a phrase or a name

+ (plus) sign = must include a “common” word or a number in the search

- (minus) sign = NOT

CAPS / lowercase sensitive = not case sensitive

truncation (wildcard or stemming) = automatic (but not always reliable)

directory feature available = yes

image search available = yes

specify language = yes (use “preferences”) Introduce to and explore features of ASK and CLUSTY

print booksHaney, David, and Michael Collins. Captain James Cook and the Explorers of

the Pacific. New York: Chelsea House, 1992.

print encyclopediasSolnick, Bruce B. “Cook, James.” Academic American Encyclopedia. 1997.

online database: encyclopedias“Cook, James.” Encyclopedia Americana. 2004. Wright Library Online.

<http://ea. grolier.com>. Accessed 18 Mar. 2004.

print periodicals“Farther Than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook.” Library

Journal 1 July 2001: 100.

online database: periodicalsShute, Nancy. “Captain Cook, Anthropologist; The Mariner Who Mapped the

Pacific Was Also a Keen Observer of Human Nature.” U.S. News and World Report 23 Feb. 2004: 73 pars. Proquest. Wright Library Online. <http://proquest.umi.com>. Accessed 18 Mar. 2004.

websites“James Cook.” The Mariners’ Museum. Tuesday, 20 May 2003.

<http://www.mariner.org/age/cook.html>. Accessed 18 Mar. 2004.

Gr. 6: Citations & Works Cited Page

Gr. 5-8: The Research Plan I. Read a GENERAL ENCYCLOPEDIA (print or online) article about your topic.

The more you know before you start your research the better, especially if you plan to go out on the Internet looking for information; allows you to develop a list of KEYWORDS for searching PAC terminals, online databases, and Google.

II. Search the library PAC TERMINALS for a book or non-print item about your topic using BROAD (general) terms and/or NARROW (specific) terms as appropriate.

A. Keyword searchB. Subject Keyword search (because your term could be anywhere in the field)

Notice the CALL NUMBERS on the list generated by your search and use the call numbers to browse both the reference section and the stacks; be sure to look for your topic in the indexes at the back of books that have similar call numbers

III. Search for a SUBJECT ENCYCLOPEDIA article about your topic in the REFERENCE SECTION.

IV. Search an ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIA available on the library website for an article about your topic.

Note especially and use any “HOT LINKS” to websites; these will be good websites to use.

IV. Search an ONLINE PERIODICALS DATABASE available on the library website for a magazine or newspaper article about your topic.

VI. Use a SEARCH ENGINE to search the WORLD WIDE WEB for an article about your topic.

Learning Opportunities

AISL:http://aisl2008.wordpress.com/

Taft School:http://www.taftschool.org/tec/index.htm