Digital Resources - Lesson 4b : Additional Education Databases

1)  When I searched for “Technology Education” and “Alaska” in Teacher Reference Center, I got 14 hits. Those additional limits brought it down to 9 articles. Here's the citation in MLA format:

"Technology Takes On Rural Alaskan Schools." T H E Journal 30.4 (2002): 52. Teacher Reference Center. Web. 31 Mar. 2012.

2)   The same search in ERIC returns 81 results. The limits bring down the results to 3 articles. None of the three show a link to a PDF or HTML version, but if you follow the link in the record, each article displays on the screen as a PDF.

3)  The search in Professional Development brings 18 results, and the limits narrow that to 4 articles. And yes, there is some overlap. I recognize the title about the former Apple executive, and some of the others look familiar, too.

4)  Yes, there's a little overlap, but not really that much. The search done in all three databases together brings 100 hits, and limited it comes down to 7.  I'm a little unclear about how I could have gotten 9 hits in Teacher Reference Center, yet only 7 when that database was combined with two others.  When I look at the facets on the left, I see that 3 articles came from ERIC and 4 came from Professional Development, but only 3 came from Teacher Reference Center.  Where did the other 6 go?

Maybe this is a lesson in trying to do things too quickly.  Like I mentioned in the last post, I'm rushing through these exercises Saturday morning, so I think my lack of close attention is affecting my success.  As I sit here saying I don't have time to double check, now it's really bothering me, and I want to re-do that search.  Bear with me.  Yup, figured it out.  User error.  I limited to articles after 1998, not 2008.  Once I set my limits right, I got 3 hits.

So to answer the initial question -- what are my thoughts about searching the databases together vs. separately -- it's definitely more efficient to search them together.