Build Your Book List and Find Reviews - UGS 303 - DD Social Issues and Children's Lit - Davila - LibGuides at University of Texas at Austin

Find Articles on a Topic

Choose a place to search
Keywords for searching a database

For this assignment, you might need a few types of sources:

Source Type	Start Here
Scholarly Articles	Start with the library search bar - advanced search. Try the "peer reviewed" limit. You can also use the recommended library databases.
Books	Start with the library search bar - advanced search. You can limit to books. Use the find books tab for more information. Use subject tags to find books on similar topics. Children's Literature Comprehensive Database can help identify books in a particular genre, subject area, or grade level (see the bottom of this page). You can also identify books from publications like School Library Journal or lists made by librarians or teachers.
Book Reviews	Start with the library search bar - advanced search. Try the title of the book you're interested in and look for reviews. School Library Journal and Horn book both publish reviews of children's books.

Keyword tool
Use this tool to help you brainstorm keywords on your topic.

Searching databases is different than searching Google. Distil what you're looking for into a few key terms or phrases, rather than whole sentences.

Is the academic achievement of immigrant students impacted by national policy debates on immigration?)

For each main concept, brainstorm a few synonyms and related terms (broader or narrower) that get at that concept:

Key Concepts

immigrant students

academic achievement

policy debates

Related Terms

undocumented students (more specific)

immigrants

learning

academic performance

achievement (more general)

success

academic success

public debate

policy ideas

policy proposals

attitudes (more general/related)

negative attitudes

positive attitudes

Combine key terms using AND and OR:
- AND narrows your search by looking for articles with all of the words (your two or three key concepts should be connected with AND, because you need all of them represented in useful articles).
- OR broadens your search by looking for articles with any of the words (synonyms and related terms should be separated by OR - they get at the same key concepts, so any of them are useful).
Try different combinations of your keywords to get better results as you search.

Recommended Strategies for this class

Finding books on a topic

School Library Journal
Search for your topic area in School Library Journal - sometimes their feature articles will be a good place to find specific books. The date filter is a good tool.
Library search bar - advanced search
Use subject searches for your topic area. Once you find a subject heading that is really relevant to your topic, you can click on it to see every book with your heading. Under locations, you can limit to youth.
Public library lists (link to Austin Public Library as an example)
This is an option on the free web. You can search for your topic area, but pay attention to who is making a list - a teacher or librarian is a better bet than someone you can't identify. Look for an indication that staff created a list.

Finding book reviews

Library search bar - advanced search
Search for your book and author in the search box. If we own the book, you should see it in your results. Reviews from things like Kirkus, School Library Journal, and more should also appear if they exist. You can also search in a specific publication like School Library Journal.
New York Times - Children's Books
Some children's books may be reviewed or discussed in the New York Times. You can browse the section on children's books or search for a particular work.

Important awards for children's and YA books

Children's book awards from ALSC
The Association For Library Services to Children (ALSC), which is part of the American Libraries Association (ALA) give some of the most important awards for children's books, including the Newberry and Caldecott Medals.
Other awards from the ALA
Other arms of the ALA give awards to books for Young Adults and with all kinds of representation. Check those awards out here.

Databases for identifying children's books

Children’s Literature comprehensive database This link opens in a new window
Search for books by topic and grade level, reading levels, genre, author/illustrator and more. Includes book reviews for most entries.
Updated regularly. Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database is an online database of over 400,000 book reviews and related information about children’s literature. Search options allow users to locate books by age level, grade level, reading levels, genre, author/illustrator, language and more. Many curriculum tools are also available, including: lesson plans, teaching guides and discussion guides.

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What are databases?

This video, from RMIT University, explains what a database is...

Where's the Article?

If you don’t see a .pdf of the article you want, click FIND IT AT UT to find it in another database or in print in the Libraries.

If it is only in print in the Libraries or we don’t own the article, click GET A SCAN to have the article emailed to you. This option will take a few days.