DuPage High School District 88. Addison Trail and Willowbrook Logo

Addison Information Literacy

STUDY

Search Skills Students need to have... 

  Objectives for students:

        • I can demonstrate a variety of advanced strategies on chosen topic.
        • I can explain the search process used.
        • I can access and use the school library catalog.
        • I can access and use the school recommended databases.

Did you know that?
  On March of 2009 it was estimated that the World Wide Web contained at least 25.21 billion pages. As of May of this year, it is estimated there are over 109.5 million websites.
  Nearly 10.5 million sites are hosted on Google’s own web servers* like Blogger, Google App Engine, etc. So that’s nearly 6% of the total websites.
  Google is just one of hundreds of search engines.
Therefore, you need to develop navigation skills to safely and efficiently find the best information.

Teacher Modeling
Before you begin your search, consider
  the many sources available for your research,
  know how to use your school library catalog, DuPage #88 School Libraries
  know how to locate and use school library databases, (teacher background info)
  understand how Boolean operators and advanced nesting and truncation work.

      Support for Students
        Best Search for your information needs. Interactive version
        Choosing words and search engines.

      Guided Practice
      1.  Keyword activity
      2.  Select your term(s) and use the Boolean and note how it effects your results.
      3.  Using your assigned topic, find what you consider the best resources for your project.  In your opinion, why are they the best?


      Library Catalog
      Library catalogs can be searched by Author, Title, Subject headings and more.  Many students choose to search the catalog by a keyword search which identifies the following:

      authors' names
      title words
      subject words
      publishers' names
      publication dates (ex. "1965")
      words in notes
      series title words      		 = keywords in the online catalog
      In this sample record, keywords include everything in red.

      Unless you limit your keyword search to fields, your keywords could come from any of these sections of a catalog record.

       
      Title:
      Elizabethan drama / Laura K. Egendorf, book editor.
       
      Published:
      San Diego, Calif. : Greenhaven Press, 2000..
      Edition:
      1st ed.
      Subject:
      Criticism.
      English drama History and criticism.
      Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, Hamlet.
      Other titles:
      Egendorf, Laura K.
      Material:
      189 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
      Note:
      Includes Elizabethan drama, essays analyzing
      Elizabethan dramas, and a chronology 
      placing the dramatists lives and writings 
      within a context of major historical events.
      Interest level: 9-12

       

      Boolean Searching   -  Operators 

      Keywords typically gives a broad retrieval, however it does not control for homonyms or synonyms.  (e.g., "Vikings" may retrieve information on team sports, but not on the early explorers)  This often results in hits that are completely irrelevant to your query.

      Boolean searching allows you to combine words or phrases using the operators AND, OR, and NOT. The operators can focus or broaden a search:

      Operator

      Example search

      The search will find...

      Venn diagram
      results in pink

      AND

      		 Pennsylvania and Quakers items containing "Pennsylvania" and "Quakers". AND narrows a search, resulting in fewer hits. AND

      OR

      		 dogs or cats items containing either "dogs" or "cats".
      OR broadens a search, resulting in more hits.      		 OR

      NOT

      		 Vikings NOT football items containing "Vikings" but not the phrase "football". Caution! It's easy to exclude relevant items. NOT

      Parentheses (nesting)
      Use parentheses to clarify relationships between search terms. For example:

      (United States and Canada) and women

      combines "women" with either "United States" or "Canada".

      Truncation -- ?

      A ? at the end of a word stem provides for all variants on the word stem.  For example, a search for

      educat?

      will retrieve:

      educate, educating, education, educational, educator, educators, etc.

      If you truncate too far, you will retrieve unrelated words!

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

      Wildcards -- #

      The # provides for all possible variants inside a word or word stem. For example, a search for

      wom#n

      will retrieve:

      woman, women

      You may use truncation and a wildcard on the same word or word stem.

      Designed by: Dr. Elaine E. Buch 9/09 Graphics by permission from  Duke University Libraries <http://www.lib.duke.edu/reference/catguide/keyword.htm> 5/09

1/10  Please email Elaine E. Buch, AT Media Director, if you find broken links.