Notes from the Field

School Library Monthly/Volume XXVIII, Number 3/December 2011

Inspiring Use of Databases: Going Beyond Google

by John Volkman

"Once long, long ago, there lived a beautiful goddess named Marilyn Monroe. The first song she ever sang was her school's fight song at a game. This is where she met her future husband, a handsome hunk named Elvis Presley." So, where and when did this incredible event occur? It occurred in the mind of my library aide, Georgette, as she constructed an imaginative essay based on the research she had done using many of the available library tools in our library.

A Creative Vehicle

Georgette continued with her story, "They… went out to eat at a great diner called Gaga named after Lady Gaga who happened to be both of theirs favorite singer." And how did Ms. Gaga appear in this essay? Isn’t this considered an anachronism? Well… yes, but in the realm of making learning fun, it is really a vehicle for allowing students to create stories that combine factual information gleaned from school databases with nuggets pulled from their own imaginations.

Our library website has grown to include a large variety of databases, so it is important for library aides like Georgette to become familiar with the content offered. Since most library aides have basic Internet search skills (i.e., they can use Google), they can expand those basic skills and learn to do research on other databases and websites with minimal instruction from the school librarian. With so many library tools, adequate time to personally instruct aides in the use of them is limited. To solve this problem, I developed an assignment for these students that is primarily self-taught, self-paced, and fun to do.

Getting Started

Students are first directed to the library website where they find the links for various databases and websites that the library subscribes to and/or uses. These databases and websites are collectively called library "tools." Students investigate and use these tools following the specific directions for each.

One of the most used online resources is Wilson Web's Biography Reference Bank Select. For this tool, students are instructed to choose a famous person, either current or historical, and find information about that person in Wilson Biography. They are then to list four things that they learned about this person and two things that they learned about using the database. On the students' worksheets, lines are supplied for them to write this information. There were also lines where they can easily copy down the correct bibliographic information for a website.

The instructions for other tools are similar with slight variations because of the nature of the tool. For example, when students use SIRS to find periodical articles, they are instructed to choose a topic of current interest. Another current topic is chosen when they use a newspaper website to find information. When they are using Salem Health, they are to choose a health topic, and for World Book Online, they are to pick any topic of interest to them. Students are also required to find a book using the public library's website. By utilizing this tool, they not only become aware of its availability, but can note how it is similar and different from the school library's website.

Delving Deeper

One of the key elements of the assignment is for the students to discover aspects that are unique to each tool. To do this, students may need to be prodded to delve deeper into the tool so they don't just repeat the usual aspects of any search tool. Good examples might be the audio pronunciation of words on World Book Online, the image gallery available on Wilson Biography, and the Visual Browse or Top Ten on SIRS.

Students can investigate one or two tools per week as they have time. At the end of each week, the work done can be perused by the librarian to be sure that the students are on the right track. They can be graded for completeness, but individual answers will all be different (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Sample assignment for two of the website tools

According to Jenna, a student, "In a world where animals acted just like humans lived a brilliantly stupid panda named Thomas Edison. Thomas, without a doubt, was the dumbest student in his class at Animal University in Japan." So how did these subjects end up as unlikely partners in the same essay? Students are initially instructed to use a different topic for each of the tools that they use. It is only after all of the tools have been investigated that they are given the essay part of the assignment. In the next part of this learning adventure, they are to develop a creative essay using information from each of the tools. And this is where the assignment really gets to be fun.

The directions for the essay are as follows: "Write a two- to three-page (six to ten paragraphs) essay using the information that you gained from your research tools. You need to use at least two bits of information (two notes) from each of your sources. Combine your imagination with this information to create some kind of story. This is meant to be fun, so be creative in what you write. It will not all be realistic because of the diverse nature of the things you look up. Use creative license to place people, places, and events in normally non-congruous situations."

"This is a story of a young man named Patrick Swayze. One day Patrick was driving home after a long day of playing at a volleyball tournament. Volleyball is an indoor or outdoor sport invented by William G. Morgan. There are six positions in this sport and Patrick’s best position is middle block," wrote Krystal, a student. Notice how Krystal has combined facts that she learned about volleyball with her chosen biography subject, Patrick Swayze. The intersection of research and imagination forms an assignment that students can enjoy doing while being mentally stimulated.

Also, since the students can choose their own subjects, they are more likely to be interested in what they are researching. It is not a coincidence that Georgette, an excellent singer, chose Elvis as a subject. Similarly, Jenna is Japanese and Krystal is a talented volleyball player. They all chose topics that meant something to them, and they learned more about those topics while they learned how to utilize the research tools.

Finalizing

The final part of the project is to create a bibliography of the sources used for the assignment. Students can manually word process the bibliography or can use an online tool such as EasyBib.

After the essay has been completed, it can be peer-edited by other library aides who will enjoy the stories and learn more about the topics and websites. Finally, the school librarian can grade each student’s entire project: research tools, essay, and bibliography.

A Learning Resource

This project can be used to teach one database or ten. It can be used to teach basic research skills in any research assignment because it includes the key elements of a research paper: searching, note taking, citing sources, and writing essays. Many more lessons that show how to make research fun are detailed in my two books from Libraries Unlimited: Collaborative Research Projects: Inquiry that Stimulates the Senses (2008) and Cruising Through Research: Library Skills for Young Adults (1998).