Competency 6: Pearl Growing on Library Literature

I started on Library Literature with my naive question: When making purchasing decisions in schools, should more money be allocated towards technology related materials than print materials?

The facet I started with to get my first source was "funds allocation." I used the thesaurus to locate subject words used in the controlled vocabulary. The thesaurus search retrieved the following subjects: Finance, Libraries/Finance - which had Budgets with 589 records. It said it was used for "allocation of funds" and "library budgets."

I used the 589 records hyperlink to see what records were there. I then narrowed that down by the "New Search by Subject" option. I chose "school libraries/finance," which had 232 records.

The source I chose to use as my "known source" to begin my pearl growing was: Farmer, L., et al., (2009 April). "School Library Journal's" spending survey. School Library Journal, 55 (4), 38-44.

The subject terms used from this source were: school libraries/finance, school libraries/statistics, School Library Journal.

SS1: school libraries AND finance AND acquisitions
*Ran as a "subject(s)" search and retrieved 8 records.
*Identified one that sounded promising:
"Schools spend less than ever on books." (December 1995). Library Association Record, 97, 644.

Subjects gleaned from browsing these records: budgets, tax campaigns, school libraries/acquisitions

SS2: school libraries AND budgets AND acquisitions (all used as subjects)

*Records: 1, but it was a great hit for what I was looking for. It was: Reference question. (Fall 2009). The School Librarian's Workshop (30) 2, 15.

Subjects identified with this source: Electronic reference books/ acquisitions; Reference books/acquisitions; School libraries/reference services.

SS3: school libraries AND electronic reference books AND acquisitions (all used as subjects)

*Records: 1 (same as previous search)

Reflection:

I was very satisfied with the pearl growing search method and the results I retrieved on Library Literature.

Competency 6: Building Block Search on ERIC/FirstSearch

I used the database ERIC/FirstSearch to conduct a building block search. I decided to use ERIC because it is a database specifically for educational research articles. Since the question deals with schools, ERIC is a source worth using for searching.

Naive Question: How do school administrators determine how to allocate funds, especially where technology is concerned?

Facets to explore: funds allocation, technology, schools

Using the ERIC Thesaurus, I located the following subjects.

Possible synonyms for funds allocation: school purchasing, school funds, money management, educational finance, budgeting
Possible synonyms for technology: educational technology
Possible synonyms for schools: public schools, elementary, secondary

Based on my facets and ERIC subjects, I created my Subject Search.

SS1: "school purchasing" OR "school funds" OR "resource allocation" OR "budgeting" AND "educational technology" AND "public school" OR elementary OR secondary.

Records Retrieved: 237

Citations:

Hansen, J.S. (2001). 21st Century school finance: How is the context changing? Education finance in the states: Its past, present, and future. ECS issues paper. Education Commission of the States. ERIC database. 20 April 2010

Picus, L.O. (May 2000). Setting budget priorities. American School Board Journal 187 (5), 30-33. ERIC database. 20 April 2010.

Reflection:
I really like using ERIC. It is generally easy to locate education related articles. I got satisfactory results from the first search, though if I were to need more current information, I would need to reconstruct my search by either limiting my subjects or choose to limit the years of publication.