Competency 6b: Databases - Citation Pearl Growing Search: World Cat

A citation pearl growing search is also known as a snowballing approach because the search results increase as the user builds on information he or she already knows by modifying the search based on information retrieved in the initial query. For my citation pearl growing search, I used World Cat and included the "Article First, List of Records" and ERIC database. Since my previous search facets had proven somewhat successful, I continued using them to retrieve an initial article to begin my pearl growing. I entered the following search strings:

S1 = (usa and patriot and act) or uspa
S2 = librar*
S3 = effect* or impact*

My simple building block search retrieved 53 articles, including some very interesting titles. I sorted the results by date in order to show the more recent articles first. After scrolling through the first two pages, I located the article "Should There Be an Expectation of Privacy In the Library? Online Treasures" which I had retrieved in my previous successive fraction search.
I then began my citation pearl growing search.

Some of the same descriptors, such as "Privacy," "Internet Security," "Federal Legislation," and "Computer Security," were linked to this article as were in my previous search. After clicking on a couple of the descriptors and finding nothing very useful, I returned to the primary source article and searched the fine print of the interface and located the "Find Related," "More Like This" link. When I clicked on the link and selected "source," "computer security," "federal legislation," and "librarians," I retrieved an additional article relevant to my topic.

Below is a screenshot of the two articles, my initial article and a second related article, retrieved using the citation pearl growing search.

The last screenshot is the description of the second article retrieved in my citation pearl growing (snowballing approach) search.

While I would have expected to find more relevant articles using this approach, I realized that several factors might contribute to the reason only one additional article was retrieved. The publication type and author may not have additional articles in print with the descriptors selected. I could modify my search and leave off "publication" and include other descriptors and possibly get additional hits. This approach requires a little more time since there are many ways to "grow the pearl."