Eagan student presents research at seventh annual Celebration of Scholars event

2017 May 2

Carthage College held the seventh annual Celebration of Scholars event on Friday, April 28, 2017. Celebration of Scholars is a poster exhibition that features original research, scholarship, and creative work completed by Carthage students.

Amanda Ostrem of Eagan presented "A Content Analysis of Omnilibros.com" at the event.

This is the project's abstract:

"During the SURE program, I worked with Professor Ward to create a content analysis of her international children's literature website Omnilibros.com using over 300 books. OmniLibros is intended to help teachers, librarians, parents, and young readers select and use recently published trade books that promote understanding across cultures. I researched the website to answer the question: What type of books are on Omnilibros and where are the authors from? I also determined the regional setting of each book. This project was meant to determine the regions of the world from which Omnilibros did not have as many books. Research was carried out through a content analysis by reading summaries or annotations of each book as well as the publisher and author information. Each book was logged into a spreadsheet that recorded the author's ethnicity, publisher information, and setting. Each unique spreadsheet was then made into a graph showing the percentage for each category. Through my research I discovered that Omnilibros was in need of books with authors, publishers, and content from Africa and South America. In order to fill in those gaps, I have been reading books from those continents and annotating them for the website blog posts. This research is significant because students and teachers need resources to introduce them to books that promote cultural acceptance and new information from around the world."