Databases: LibLit Building Block Search

Compentency #5
ISAR 5013.20

I formulated a possible search. The success of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series let me to focus on searching about: vampires, good, daylight, and romance, love....etc.  I chose the topic because I am interested in working in a middle school library. This new "vampire Genre" is a huge trend in YA Fiction and many young readers are drawn to it. 

LibLit building block search

I start small with the word vampire. The database returned 59 records. I noticed that the first eight hits had Vampire in the title. Within these results I narrowed the field by adding more facet terms and connected using Boolean operator. I am going to add AND romance NOT Dracula. Results were narrowed to 7 records. But the range is too diverse. Title one is Selling Sex in a Recession by G. Bond is a misleading. This article is about the paranormal genre that has recently become popular with the rise of the Vampire Romeo and his Human Juliet. The title would make many shy away from this retrieval because of the title  even thought the article is applicable to the search.

Finally I will search within Results and come up with one article with a 70% Return score:

Freitas, D. The Next Dead Thing [Bibliographical essay]. Publishers Weekly v. 255 no. 46 (November 17 2008) p. 23-4

The abstract of the article is:
Abstract: Ever since Stephanie Meyer's vampire romances became a hit among teens, children's editors have been taking advantage of the trend for death-related books. That is not to say that every project with a supernatural slant is being green-lighted, however, with every editor aware of the dangers of oversaturation. According to Elise Howard, senior vice president and associate publisher for fiction at HarperCollins, the appetite for these novels is still unsatisfied, but the market is getting more discerning. Howard, editor of Claudia Gray's May 2008 Evernight and the upcoming March 2009 Stargazer, is currently looking beyond vampires to zombies. She believes that the average female Meyer fan is not necessarily going to go for zombie books because with all the exploding body parts, they have a very masculine feel. At Simon Pulse, vampires, zombies, witches, and their paranormal siblings are featured side-by-side on a diverse list.