Using Specialized Search Tools

The Google tool that I decided to look more into in regards to using it as a specialized search tool was Google Books.  I chose this because oftentimes I am looking for new children's literature to use in my classroom in order to enhance concepts. Sometimes, the resources in my library are limited.  Google Books allows you to search for books available for purchase in addition to free books; which, as an educator in a small Christian school is always a bonus.  

When I first began my search, I started out by looking for books on "kindness" as in 1st grade, we like to start off our school year talking about the importance of kindness to others in our classroom community.  At first, I was looking for the "Advanced Search" to be immediately available.  I found that I had to search my term "kindness" first before the Advanced Search was made available to me.  

Within Google Books, you can use the advanced search to search books with or without certain words, with exact words or phrases or with "at least one of the words."  It also allows you to find specific authors, titles, publishers, subjects, publication dates, ISBN and ISSN numbers.  Additionally, you can find books written in a wide variety of languages.  Google books is actually not just limited to the finding of books.  You can also use it to find magazines and newspapers as well.  You can also find eBooks.  

Using Google Books can have a wide variety of benefits.  One of the great benefits that I found in navigating through it is that once you find a book that you are potentially interested in, you can walk through either part or all of it with the "preview" feature.  This is incredibly helpful because as well all know, you shouldn't "judge a book by its cover."  Some of the books that I saw about kindness for example looked like they might be viable options from the outside.  However, once I dug a little deeper, I noticed that some had things that as a Christian, I do not necessarily find in line with a Biblical worldview.  Additionally, I found some books that, after investigating the inside further, we geared more for younger PreK or Kindergarten students and would not necessarily be challenging enough for my 1st grade students.  

As an educator, one of the cons that I noticed is that there did not appear to be any way to specifically find books for an age range.  Many of the books that came up about "kindness" for example were geared for adults.  This would not necessarily be beneficial to me if I am looking for something for my elementary students.  It also seemed as though unless you already had in mind something specific that you were searching for, it could be hard to find something based on a concept.  A solution to this could be to do a simple Google search for a book, then find it in Google Books to see if there was a good preview you could do before purchasing the book.  Students could also use this resource in the same way.  

I would recommend this tool to educators for the purpose of finding potential books to use in the classroom.  When using, I would recommend having as much information about what you are looking for in order to most refine your search.  Another benefit to this tool is that it allows you to see books similar to the one you selected.  This feature definitely helped me in seeing more choices.  It was also helpful to be able to compare prices of books so easily.  Overall, I would say that Google Books was a helpful tool and I look forward to navigating through it further.