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Nobel Middle School
Grade 6/Andy Gioulis
Library Instruction Session, Spring 2008
C. Martin
Goal: to introduce students to credible resources for sixth-grade assignments.
Mode: Lecture/demonstration and hands-on practice.
Learning outcomes:
Nobel Middle School students will be able to:
 Identify the differences between a public library and a college library
 Develop a search strategy by identifying keywords
 Begin to evaluate websites on the Internet
 Search for books in the Oviatt Library online catalog
 Understand and identify elements of an online catalog record
 Recognize and read Library of Congress call numbers
 Understand the importance of using Boolean connectors
 Search for articles in the Oviatt Library databases and in LAPL’s General OneFile
 Understand the distinction of a full-text search
Preparation:
Handouts: Middle School Library Resources Handout and Middle School Library
Exercise.
Workstations: Turn on all student workstations. Open Microsoft Word on instructor
terminal and type in
 “Computers are not frozen; they are locked using a special software program.
Please do not touch the keyboard, computer or mouse until instructed to do so.
Thank you.” in 32-point size type. “Slave” the computers.
Instructor monitor: Open Oviatt Library homepage and another browser on
http://www.lapl.org and minimize both screens.
Length of session: Assumes a 30-minute lecture and 30 minutes of hands-on practice.
Session Objectives - 30 minutes of lecture; 30 minutes hands-on practice working on
exercise:
1. Introduce self and session:
 Goal of session: to introduce you to credible resources for sixth-grade
assignments.
 Go over handouts: Middle School Library Resources Handout is for you to
keep and refer back to when doing future research; Middle School Library
Exercise is a sheet we will complete together during the second half of this
lesson. It must be turned in to your teacher at the end of class.
 You do not need to be a student here to use the computers on the main
floor of the library or to receive reference assistance. Show “Ask a
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Librarian” page. Help can be obtained at the reference desk, via email, and
chat services.
2. Differences between a public library and a college library
How many use the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) and have a library card there?
Advantages of using a public library:
 Materials support informational, recreational and lifelong learning needs of
people in a community
 Dewey Decimal System used to classify/organize books – begins with numbers
 Periodicals (explain what periodical means) include a wide range of general
interest magazines
 Books are general in interest and support self-education and personal enrichment
How many have been to a college library before?
Advantages of using an academic or college library:
 Materials support academic research of university community (and your
homework assignments)
 Library of Congress Classification System used to classify/organize books –
begins with letters
 Periodicals include online scholarly journals to enhance research and support
college curriculum (and your homework assignments)
 Books support research and college curriculum
3. Develop a search strategy
Organize key ideas before you begin searching. Think of words that will help us find
information on our topic and mix and match these words in the search.
Write topic on board: the impact of video games on children’s development. Ask them
what would be the search terms in the topic and underline them. What would be some
synonyms for these terms?
video games
computer games
Gameboy or Playstation
children
kids
teens
development
health
psychological
4. Search for a book
Do a keyword search for a book. Explain how keyword searching in our catalog is a very
broad search and similar to Google searching in that you enter natural language – words
you use when speaking about the topic. Also, you don’t need to use the connector AND
as you will need to do in our databases.
Pull up a book’s record. Explain the different parts of the record such as:
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Title
Author
Location
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Call Number
Status
Subject Heading Links.
Show how clicking on subject heading links can lead to similar books. (Sometimes
teachers don’t want you to demonstrate the “send via text message” link in the record,
depends on the class and the teacher.)
5. Read call numbers
Explain the call number is similar to an address and tells you where the item is located in
the library. Write a fictitious Dewey call number used by LAPL and a fictitious LC call
number used at an academic library on the board.
Explain how the LC System most academic libraries use is different from the Dewey
System public libraries use. One major difference - LC uses letters at the beginning of the
call number. Write the beginning of the alphabet above the fictitious call numbers and
demonstrate how to read it.
“Let’s say an LC call number is - GF108.723 – to find it on the shelf you would search
alphabetically. Pass the As, Bs, Cs, Ds etc. until you reach the Gs. After you find the Gs
section of books you will then see GA, GB, GC, GD, GE and then find the GFs section
before you begin to look for the numbers.” Questions?
Write down the floor number, call number, title and look to see if it is in the library under
status. Look at the books on the shelf around it. Similar books will be in the same area.
6. Search for articles in database
You can access our databases from any first-floor computer in the library. From the
homepage, click “Find Articles and Research Data.” Explain how databases are
categorized by subject matter. General/Multi-Subject databases will meet the needs for
most assignments they will be given at their school.
Go to “General/Multi-Subject Databases.”
Go to “General OneFile Gale.”
Explain how most databases perform similar basic functions, they all just look a little
different. Click the full-text button. Explain this limits the results to online “full text”
sources only. Tell them it’s useful for searching now because of the limited time they
have today. They will be able to take what they find with them. But later, if they come
back to do research or when they get to college, they may not want to click the full-text
box because it eliminates information in print that might be useful to their search.
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first search box type in: video games
second search box type in: children
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Explain how it is important to put each term in its’ own search box. The database is not
like Google where you can enter a sentence or a long stream of words. Google will add
AND for you but our databases will not. You must use the connector AND to include all
terms in your searches. Explain the importance of AND, and how the computer asks for
each term to be included in the results. Hit enter.
How many articles were retrieved? Refine the search.
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third search box type in: development. Hit enter. Point out the number of articles
decreases.
You may or may not want to introduce using OR in addition to AND. It depends on the
class. But you could do it here. i.e. development OR health. Explain how OR generally
broadens the search.
Scan the list of articles. Talk about:
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date sorting for timely information
a PDF article - show them a PDF
how to select a citation style
how to save or email the article (email or flash drive recommended)
caution them about using the citation formatting software. Spell check it is not
always accurate, neither are these programs.
Show them where to double check the citation formatting information in our website.
Online citation style guides - http://library.csun.edu/Find_Resources/ebooks/estylegd.html
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Pull up the same article in the HTML format. Same exact information as the PDF.
It simply has been reformatted so it looks different.
Tell them they can use General OneFile or any of our other databases if they are here at
the Oviatt. If they have an LAPL library card, they can do their searching at LAPL or
from home. Pull up the LAPL website, click on Databases, click on “G” for General
OneFile.
Questions?
7. Search the Web
How many use the Internet/Google to research homework assignments? Does anybody
use Wikipedia? Why/why not? (Explain dangers of Wikipedia, lacking authority,
accuracy, must verify info in library w/Wikipedia info.) No one is filtering the info on the
Internet as we do for the library databases. Important to evaluate the info we find. One
thing you can do is look at the URL of a site. It will tell you a lot about its purpose.
(Write on board) .com = to sell
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.org = persuade
.edu = educate
. gov = official gov info
. net = usually personal pages
Look for authority – who is responsible for the info on the site, any credentials? Can the
info be verified in a credible source such as a books, journal or magazine? Questions?
If there is time, it is useful to repeat the database search as a recap before they search on
their own.
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Pass out Middle School Library Exercise. Need to complete the exercise
(together) and they MUST turn it in to their teacher at the end of class.