Organization and Subject Access
In the Catalog
Cataloging for the very youngest audiences presents challenges no matter what the specific material being organized. Our child users include students up to the second grade level, an age at which many children will be taking their first steps towards independent online searching. It is therefore crucial that catalog records be created with their specific needs in mind.
Lynne A. Jacobsen writes that “[a] clear understanding of how children search and retrieve information is critical to providing quality cataloging that will enable children to successfully find information” (Intner, Fountain & Gilchrist, 17). Children’s difficulty in constructing keyword searches is well documented; consider, for example, one eleven-year-old study participant’s statement that searching is “hard because you have to find the right words to put in the box” (Druin, Foss, Hatley, Golub, Guha, Fails & Hutchinson, 89). Especially for the youngest searchers, finding the overarching terms to describe categories of objects--exactly the kinds of terms that we use for subject access, necessary for keyword searching--can be challenging if not impossible. In our story bags, each based around a particular theme, this issue is particularly important to address.
Perhaps the easiest solution to the problems of children and searching is to bypass the search bar altogether. Gossen and Nürnberger write that “browsing performance of children is better and… children prefer browsing… [which] fits children’s “natural tendency to explore.” It also better fits to the motor skills of children” (745; emphasis original). Fortunately, in a collection as limited in scope as our story bags, browsing provides a very viable option in information retrieval. We have created a separate page on the school library website specifically for the story bag collection. This page is organized with large, clear, simple images, each accompanied by a link to the catalog record of the appropriate story bag. Taking the work out of determining subject vocabulary should greatly aid young child patrons in the process of locating a specific story bag, or choosing a new one that might interest them. The use of images will make the story bag page accessible, to some degree, even to children whose reading skills are rudimentary, and listing the existing story bags for children will remove spelling issues within searches. However, it is important that we consider the question of how children will find this index page in the first place. A direct link through the school library’s main page accompanied by a photograph of a story bag itself, makes the connection as clear as possible.
Issues surrounding young children’s access are the most difficult in cataloging our collection, but it is important to remember also that adults such as parents and teachers will use the story bag collection, and their needs must also be met. Each story bag has a conventional catalog entry that includes:
Bearing in mind that some children will use the search bar even if browsing is an option, subject headings for story bag entries are selected from the Library of Congress’s lists of Subject Headings for Children and Subject Headings for School and Public Libraries (Intner et al, 12). These include simplified LC subject headings that are designed to be easier for children to use. Intner et al. recommend that “assignment of both general and specific headings (e.g., Turtles and Sea turtles”) can be especially useful in cataloging for children (13), because young patrons have more difficulty in broadening or narrowing a search, so we have included multiple headings where appropriate.
The Seattle Public Library’s ‘Begin With Books’ program is a similar program to our story bag collection, providing what they call ‘theme kits.’ The MARC record for their Family kit provides a good example of what a similar record for our collection might look like:
Lynne A. Jacobsen writes that “[a] clear understanding of how children search and retrieve information is critical to providing quality cataloging that will enable children to successfully find information” (Intner, Fountain & Gilchrist, 17). Children’s difficulty in constructing keyword searches is well documented; consider, for example, one eleven-year-old study participant’s statement that searching is “hard because you have to find the right words to put in the box” (Druin, Foss, Hatley, Golub, Guha, Fails & Hutchinson, 89). Especially for the youngest searchers, finding the overarching terms to describe categories of objects--exactly the kinds of terms that we use for subject access, necessary for keyword searching--can be challenging if not impossible. In our story bags, each based around a particular theme, this issue is particularly important to address.
Perhaps the easiest solution to the problems of children and searching is to bypass the search bar altogether. Gossen and Nürnberger write that “browsing performance of children is better and… children prefer browsing… [which] fits children’s “natural tendency to explore.” It also better fits to the motor skills of children” (745; emphasis original). Fortunately, in a collection as limited in scope as our story bags, browsing provides a very viable option in information retrieval. We have created a separate page on the school library website specifically for the story bag collection. This page is organized with large, clear, simple images, each accompanied by a link to the catalog record of the appropriate story bag. Taking the work out of determining subject vocabulary should greatly aid young child patrons in the process of locating a specific story bag, or choosing a new one that might interest them. The use of images will make the story bag page accessible, to some degree, even to children whose reading skills are rudimentary, and listing the existing story bags for children will remove spelling issues within searches. However, it is important that we consider the question of how children will find this index page in the first place. A direct link through the school library’s main page accompanied by a photograph of a story bag itself, makes the connection as clear as possible.
Issues surrounding young children’s access are the most difficult in cataloging our collection, but it is important to remember also that adults such as parents and teachers will use the story bag collection, and their needs must also be met. Each story bag has a conventional catalog entry that includes:
- its theme
- a list of all the materials contained in the bag
- basic records (title, author, format) for materials like books or audio materials which may have separate catalog entries, and links to the complete records for those materials
- the specific age or developmental stage of the children for which it would likely be most appropriate
- developmental skills (e.g. phonemic awareness) that the included materials can help foster
- a series title--Banned Book Story Bags--that links to the other story bags in the collection
- a brief note on the history of banned books within the bag
- a link to a digital copy of the informational material contained within the bag, which parents or teachers can scan in advance or print for their own use.
- an icon of the same image used to represent this particular bag on the story bag index page, to confirm the connection for emergent readers.
Bearing in mind that some children will use the search bar even if browsing is an option, subject headings for story bag entries are selected from the Library of Congress’s lists of Subject Headings for Children and Subject Headings for School and Public Libraries (Intner et al, 12). These include simplified LC subject headings that are designed to be easier for children to use. Intner et al. recommend that “assignment of both general and specific headings (e.g., Turtles and Sea turtles”) can be especially useful in cataloging for children (13), because young patrons have more difficulty in broadening or narrowing a search, so we have included multiple headings where appropriate.
The Seattle Public Library’s ‘Begin With Books’ program is a similar program to our story bag collection, providing what they call ‘theme kits.’ The MARC record for their Family kit provides a good example of what a similar record for our collection might look like:
On the Shelf
We decided that the story bag collection should be given its own separate shelf or rack in the library, rather than being mixed in with the larger collection. This will increase browsability and give the story bag collection a higher profile. The bags are alphabetized by name. Each bag is labeled with a large, clear image, usually the same image used to represent that bag on the story bag index page on the website. This concrete link will aid in discovery even for children whose reading skills are still developing, and reinforce the connection between the online catalog and the physical collection, an important lesson for early library users.
The bags also, feature a QR tag linking back to the catalog’s entry for the bag in question, to aid in discovery and exploration for adults and teachers.
The bags also, feature a QR tag linking back to the catalog’s entry for the bag in question, to aid in discovery and exploration for adults and teachers.
Sources
- Druin, A., Foss, E., Hatley, L., Golub, E., Guha, M.L., Fails, J. and Hutchinson, H. (2009). How Children Search the Internet with Keyword Interfaces. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children, 89-96. doi:10.1145/1551788.1551804.
- Gossen, T. & Nürnberger, A. (2013). Specifics of Information Retrieval for Young Users: A Survey. Information Processing and Management, 49, 739-756. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2012.12.006.
- Intner, S.S., Fountain, J.F., & Gilchrist, J.E. (Eds.). (2006). Cataloging Correctly for Kids: An Introduction to the Tools. Chicago: American Library Association. http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy2.library.illinois.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=149116&site=ehost-live.
- Seattle Public Library. Family (Kit). Retrieved on November 20, 2013 from http://seattle.bibliocommons.com/item/show/2608563030_family.
- Seattle Public Library. (2013). MARC Record [Image adapted from “Families: Kit”], Retrieved on November 20, 2013 from http://seattle.bibliocommons.com/item/show/2555836030_families