Lesson 4

1.  I typed "Les Miserables" (without quotes) in the search box and had 5352 results.  When I used the Document Type limiters and excluded the areas of review, transcript, obituary, and market research, the number of results was cut down to 4653 results.  Then I excluded the Subject areas of:  theater, musical theater, motion pictures, actors, ticket sales, musicians & conductors, opera, motion picture directors & producers, musical performances, drama, musical recordings, television programs, awards & honors, music, theaters & cinemas, motion picture industry, performing arts, composers, motion picture criticism, aesthetics, popular music, entertainment technology & design, singers, art history, entertainment industry, theater directors & producers, visual artists, competition, set design, and musicology.  The results list was then reduced to 3718.  Then I clicked on just the "literary criticism" subject area and had 248 results.  It looks like these don't all pertain to Hugo's work, however, so I started the search over, including the terms Victor Hugo along with the title in the search (without quotations).  This resulted in 583 hits.  I then limited the search by the same types Document and Subject areas as my first search, and the results was 385 hits.  Limiting this field to just the "literary criticism" subject area gives 33 results.  Hopefully that would be a much more manageable number and would give the appropriate types of articles to satisfy the patron's needs.

2.  First I did a full text search on "hurricane sandy impact libraries" (without quotes).  This gave me 264 results.  Then I narrowed this group by selecting to include according to publication titles.  The ones I chose to include were:  Library Journal, School Library Journal, Teacher Librarian, and Journal of the Medical Library Association.  This narrowed the results to just 16.  These I sorted by Publication Date (most recent first), and the newest article displayed was from Library Journal (Jan. 1, 2013 issue).  The article deals with the effects the hurricane had on the NYU Medical Library.  The second article in the list is from the same issue of Library Journal, but it really doesn't have much to do with Hurricane Sandy, other than stating that the effects of the hurricane on libraries' budgets are yet unknown.  The third article in the list is again from Library Journal, this time the Dec. 1, 2012, issue.  Again, it doesn't deal with the impact the hurricane had on libraries.  It came up because of a story about a raccoon that was found in a library atrium after the hurricane.  I tried a new search using the same terms, but this time putting "hurricane sandy" within quotation marks.  This resulted in 40 hits, which I then sorted by publication date, listing the newest article first.  The top result in thee list is from the Federal Register, dated Feb. 7, 2013, but it has nothing to do with the impact of the hurricane on libraries.  The only reference I saw to the hurricane was in dealing with the transit system.  (I am really glad that the terms I searched are highlighted in the text, as that makes it much easier to find them in lengthy articles such as this one.)  In fact, the first six hits did not seem to have anything to do with the impact of the hurricane on libraries.  Hits 7 & 8 were the same ones that came up in my earlier search (as the first and second hits).  Article 13 touched a bit on some libraries that benefited from a book donation made by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt after the hurricane.  So perhaps my first search with the limitations by document type was the better way to go.