9 - Internet

Using Google I found this great website called EZ Program Search Page or "EZ Library Programs for ALL Ages". It is a website or directory developed by New York's Mid-Hudson Library System to help their Librarians find age appropriate programming ideas based on cost, theme, age, and program type. I chose this website because I am very interested in finding out about youth programing in a public library. This site combines three things any librarian needs to take into consideration which are budgeting, target audience, and program to be offered. It is a great place to check out especially for a new librarian who wants to create a certain type of youth program and wants to know anything they can do based on certain budgets starting at $0.

8 - Research Visual / Multimedia

The Burlington School District collected and organized by grade the number of youths that attended youth programs each year. This is a very good graph as it shows the progress each grade makes as the students move to a higher grade level each year and whether the number for that grade rose the subsequent year or lowered as students interest waned from the previous year. This shows trends that can be found in youth programs as each year 8th grade seems to have the highest number of attendees.

The reason I chose this graph is because my topic is on youth programming for libraries. With this graph I have an example of the age range based on grade for the amount of students that often attend programs after school. Such graphs can show me the grades to aim at in the future to try to bring to library programming in the future.

Copyright Information: The City of Burlington, Vermont: Community & Economize Development Office, 2006 Agency of Human Services Community Profiles (2006)."Students Participating in Youth Forums"Retrieved March 30, 2010, from http://www.cedoburlington.org/cdbg/2008_con_plan/2_V.htm

7 - Image

I chose this picture because it is a good representation of my search for youth programs in the public library. It is drawing in the targeted audience and even promotes the idea that reading is fun. A great positive of the image is that it is telling teens it is a special time of the year for them all over the U.S. and that they are not ignored in the library as this is a ALA event.

6.4 - Browsing Search

For my final search strategy I did a browsing search of the ERIC database. I started browsing by going to the Thesaurus and decided to look at youth programs. Using this strategy I picked what I thought best defined what I was looking for under youth programs and came up with some interesting results. Among the best results I found browsing like this was :

Connecting Youth to High-Resource Adults: Lessons from Effective Youth ProgramsCitation Only Available . By: Sullivan, Patrick J.; Larson, Reed W.. Journal of Adolescent Research, v25 n1 p99-123 2010. (EJ867062)

Database: ERIC

After having tried three other search strategies before this one I have to say that this is a good way to search when you are not looking for anything very specific but are just looking at information. Overall I would have to say I liked the building block search strategy best with browsing as my third favorite as most useful strategies out of these four.

6.3 - Citation Pearl Growing Search

For my third search strategy I am trying a citation pearl growing search in Academic Search Complete. Here I decided to begin my search using an article I already knew existed from a previous search called "Crafting Cheap and successful Teen Programs". The article was also available in this database so I began searching the links provided with this article for similar items I could use.


One of the links provided was the subject term listing: LIBRARIES & teenagers. Another link was to the source of the article in the journal Young Adult Library Services. Using these to links I began growing a new search for items directly related to an article I already found useful. Through the subject term link I found a lot of useful articles including:

Gaming Advocacy.Full Text Available By: Scordato, Julie. School Library Journal, Jan2010, Vol. 56 Issue 1, p22-23, 2p, 1 color; (AN 47391844)

Database: Academic Search Complete

As a search strategy I like it a lot better then specific facet. This style of searching is following a pattern or trail from one item to the next. They are all connected together for a reason that coincides with what you're searching for which is great. I guess the only trouble is you to do a simple search first so you can already know something on where to begin like an article available so you can start growing a new search from it.

6.2 - Specific Facet Search

For my second search strategy I am trying a specific facet search in Project MUSE . For this search I am going to use the same facets I used for my building block search. They were ( adolescent or teen ) and (program or event) and (library). To begin a chose to search (adolescent or teen) before deciding whether I needed to add to it. I found 6,607 results and none that looked really promising as a top result so i decided to narrow it more by adding the second facet (program or event). This cut the results almost in half to 3,401. With this second facet I found some results I could use. I decided to add the third facet (library) to see if it made a big difference and while it lowered the result numbers the top result was still the same as when I didn't use it:

Walter, Virginia A. Sowing the Seeds of Praxis: Incorporating Youth Development Principles in a Library Teen Employment Program. Library Trends, Vol 58, no 1 (Summer 2009) p. 63-81.


Compared to the building block search I found this search a little tedious as I had to slowly work my way into narrowing the search by adding specific facets one at time. It was a little bit like a guessing game as I also had to first decide which facet would be my starting point as it was mostly likely to get the fewest results first.