How to find a book in an elementary school library

Objective - Students will be able to use the online catalogue to find call numbers, and use call numbers to find books of choice for check out

Teaching Point - Readers know how to use the online catalogue to find their book of choice on the shelves.

Setting-
School library. Computers are all open to the online catalogue search page. The school collection is set as the default, so availability of materials at other schools will not show up.
The collection consists of fiction books catalogued with an alphabetical system by author's last name, and nonfiction which is catalogued using the Dewey Decimal Classification system.

Technology-
Computers
Smartboard with a laptop

Prior Knowledge–
ABCs for fiction book location
Decimal numbers for 4th grade and higher
Keyboarding for 3rd grade and higher - some younger know how to type as well
Books are fiction or nonfiction

Assessment –
Students successfully locate their book of choice for check out with little adult help

Transfer-
Near transfer – alphabet to find fiction books
Far Transfer – decimals and letters in nonfiction books with Dewey Decimal Classification call numbers
Negative Transfer - call numbers are not always numbers; all books are not catalogued using the same system

Lesson-
Students will be introduced to searching the catalogue through a mini-lesson on how to find a book using author, title or subject search options. The lesson will be based on favorite authors, like Kinney who writes the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and titles like The Last of the Olympians. Subject searches might include Star Wars, Pokemon, dinosaurs, and animals are popular topics. I will use these examples to start the lesson, and let the students suggest as the lesson progresses. I will also use a Smartboard as the main teaching tool.

I will start the lesson with the initial search page and see if any students remember or can guess what the page is for. Then, I will point out the search box and the selections for the type of search: author, title, subject, and keyword. We will focus on the first three; we will talk about keyword searches another day.

I will ask students how many would like to find one of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books? To find these books we could type in (pulling up the keyboard function on the Smartboard) Wimpy Kid and before selecting title, ask for predictions on what I will find. Which books will be listed? The search should pull up all titles from the series in book and playaway formats.

We can decide which book to look for. After selecting that book: In the record we need to find the call number, which is the special number for that book. It tells us where to find the book in the library. Let's see if we can find the call number for the Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Negative transfer - not all call numbers are numbers. They can also be letters. So it may take them a little time to find the call number. For this book the call number is F KIN, F is for fiction and KIN is for Kinney, the author. Fiction books are shelved in alphabetical order by the author's last name. I will show them where the fiction books are shelved.

You can search for books when you know the author but forgot the title. For example, I like Henkes but forget which book is about the girl starting school and she is so scared. I can enter Henkes, select author, and read through the book titles that come up. We see that the call number is a lot like Diary of a Wimpy Kid. It starts with an F and then three letters for the author's last name: F HEN.

Okay. We have one more way to look for books that we're going to talk about today, and that is using a subject search. Why do you think I might want to use a subject search? I would select a student that provided a possible answer for this question and allow him/her to type in and search by subject the topic. Now let's look for the call number. Positive, Near Transfer - Once it is found: Hey it's a number, with a decimal - you know about those (if they are in 3rd grade or older) or a dot if they are younger, and a letter. Hmm. Let's write this down. When I go to look on the shelves for this book it will be a bit harder than the fiction books which uses our ABCs (Positive, Near). Positive, Far Transfer - We will need to use the numbers to the left of the decimal, then the numbers to the right and then the letter. I will make the call number larger so we can look at each component. The nonfiction books are trickier to find (pointing out where in the library they are housed). Give it a try and if you need help, I'm happy to give you a hand. What are some other subjects we might want to find? Depending on time and interest level, we might try one more Smartboard search directed by a student.

Alright, lets find some books for check out. I would then direct the students to the computers and monitor their progress. I can add suggestions through questions to help guide them in their search process. We can talk about their choices during checkout.