Competency: Databases

I will use four different searches to conduct these search strategies in four different databases for this competency.

The Building Block Approach
For this method I will use the Worldcat database.

There were three search boxes in WorldCat.
In the Search Term fields I used "Information Technology AND digital media AND Photoshop" keyword search.

This yielded 3 total results.

The most relevant was the book "Digital imaging for photographers"

I then decided to use the search terms seperatley.

The first term "Information Technology" found 236,075 hits. This was way too many hits to be uselful. One of the hits was :

Negroponte, N. (1995). Being digital. New York: Knopf.

I know decide that I should try to use similar terms to substitute for "Digital Media". I will use the terms "Computer Graphics"; this gave 76,570 hits.

The term was too broad and mostly showed results of computer software guides.

How can I narrow this down dramatically? I think I should try similar terms to replace "Computer Graphics" and "Information Technology."

I will use the terms "3d rendering" and "animation".
This displayed 43 hits and the first hit was the most relevant but outdated.

Baker, M. P., & Hearn, D. (1994). Computer graphics. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall.



Fennessy, P., ScienceDirect (Online service), & Davies, A. (2001). Digital imaging for photographers. Oxford: Focal Press.

Thoughts:
It seems that the building block approach gives the most results but has very few good hits in the WorldCat database. It requires a user to be familiar with a subject to have the ability to use synonyms. It may be easier, but it gives less relevant information in the end.

The Snowballing Approach

I used the Snowballing approach in Academic Search Complete to search for " information technology".

This yielded 84746 hits.

The Subject Thesaurus Term Suggested the terms "IMAGE processing--Digital Techniques"

This yielded 60 hits.

There was another suggested subject for "watermarking"

The results of the keywords "information technology + image processing --Digital Techniques + Watermarking" yielded two results. The second document was chosen.


Dong, Z., Sha, W., & Jiying, Z. (2009). RST Invariant Image Watermarking Algorithm With Mathematical Modeling and Analysis of the Watermarking Processes. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, 18(5), 1055-1068. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.


Thoughts:
Snowballing is a very directed search. I can greatly focus the results in a database, but lacks flexibility when choosing search terms. The search can be focused too much in one area, and generally can exclude more relevant results in the process. It may be more useful when researching a certain subject in a field of study.


The Successive Fraction Approach
I will apply the Successive Fraction Approach to the ERIC database using the terms "library technology"
This yielded 220 results.

In searching the subject tags I then added the terms "not web sites"

This yielded 216 results. I still thought it was too many results so I narrowed it down even further with "not school", "not vendors", "not distance education", "not costs".

I figured that adding this many exclusive terms would not narrow it down as fast as I needed so I added the "AND public" operator.

This really narrowed down the results to 37. This was a more manageable amount of results.

I went ahead and added "AND adults" and dropped this down to an astonishing 2 results.
The second result was most relevant.

Huntington, B., Swanson, C., & Wisconsin State Dept. of Public Instruction, M. (2002). Adults with Special Needs. A Resource and Planning Guide for Wisconsin's Public Libraries. Retrieved from ERIC database.

Thoughts:
This approach I found to be the most useful. I could limit the search by any terms and widen it with boolean operators. I wonder how the database interprets the words "not, and, with" without including them as keywords. I can only assume it translates them into limiters even though the database does not state as such. This reminds me of Google that has boolean searches also but uses the symbols such as + and - instead of the word operators.

The Most Specific Facet First Approach
I will apply this technique to the Project Muse database.

I will use the terms "Information Technology AND Digital Media AND Photoshop".
The most specific term here is "Photoshop" as that program is only used in photo alterations.

The first term "Information Technology" yielded 68 results.
The first term "Digital Media" yielded 57 results.


Photoshop is the most specific term here yet it received the most hits.
The first term "Photoshop" yielded 111 results.

I decided to use all three terms together and they yielded 48 total results with the 25th result being the most relevant.

Turim, Maureen C. (1999). Artisanal Prefigurations of the Digital: Animating Realities, Collage Effects, and Theories of Image Manipulation. 21(1), 49-62. Retrieved from the Project Muse Database.

Thoughts:
In this particular database most of the results were a little broad. I may have been the size of the database, but I can see these numbers increasing exponentially in a different database. I thought that the term "Photoshop" would show the least results, because it was specific enought to narrow down the search. The reverse happened and it displayed the most results for that keyword.