Competency 6: LS 5013 Specific Facet First Search Strategy

Search Topic: I want to find a book about the climate of tropical rainforests for children.

Database: WorldCat

Quick test for specific facet:
S1 = tropical rainforest or rainforests: 2,928 records
S2 = climate or weather: 225,908 records
S3 = children or kids: 1,829,570 records

The facet with the fewest number of records is S1, tropical rainforest or rainforests.
2,928 records are too many to look through.

My next step before going to do a standard Building Block or Successive Fractions search is to apply limiters and see if that narrows down my search results.

Limiters I applied:
I limited Type to books.
I limited Language to English.
I limited Year to 2000-2008.
Subtype Limits: juvenile, not fiction.

When I applied the limiters above, I came up with 163 results for tropical rainforests which was much better than the 2,928 hits I came up with originally. I was able to find several great articles on my search topic.

1 example of records found:
Rainforests : an activity guide for ages 6-9 /
Nancy F Castaldo
2003 1st ed.
English Book : Primary school x, 133 p. : ill., map ; 21 cm.
Chicago, Ill. : Chicago Review Press, ; ISBN: 1556524765 9781556524769
Provides facts and activities that explore tropical and temperate ancient forests, discusses how individuals can help preserve them, and describes well-known and unfamiliar creatures of the rain forest.

If I had not found the results I wanted using the limiters, I would have done a standard Building Block Search to narrow the search down further.

Reflection:

I decided to do this search looking for a children's book on a particular subject, much like I will be doing when I become an elementary school librarian. I was able to find several good books that were exactly what I was looking for by doing this search. I liked using the WorldCat database.

The Specific Facet First Search Strategy is the search strategy that I like the least out of the four search strategies posted on my blog. I find that when I do this type of search, most of the time, I end up having to go back and do a Building Block Search Strategy or a Successive Fractions Search Strategy because of getting too many results in my original search. For this reason, I do not find the Specific Facet First Search Strategy useful. In order for it to be of use to a user, it would have to be used in a search where there is a term that is very rare and specific. In that case, I think this strategy would be useful.