RESEARCH TUTORIAL CONTENTS

Select a Topic

Find Background Information

Find Books

Find Articles

Find Web Sites

Evaluating Web Sites

Citing Sources
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In the last section you learned how to search the catalog by title or author. Searching for a book by topic is a little trickier. There are two main methods for searching a library catalog for books and other items on a topic -- keyword searching and subject searching. In a keyword search, you pick out two or more of the most important keywords or phrases related to your topic. If you analyzed your topic, you should have a list of possible keywords to search.

Keyword Searching
A keyword search simply looks for your keywords (search terms) anywhere in the title, subject, notes, contents, etc. In the SCC library catalog, there are two ways to do a keyword search -- Keyword Relevance Search and the Advanced Search.

Keyword Relevance Search

Title List -- Keyword Relevance Search
Results from a Keyword Relevance Search will be ordered by most relevant. The most relevant titles will have the most dots to the left of the title. In a Keyword Relevance Search, the catalog gives greater emphasis to certain parts of a record, such as the title and Library of Congress subject headings. So if your terms are found in the title and the subjects, for example, that item will appear near the top of the list.

Keyword Search -- Advanced Search
In the Advanced Search mode, you can also do a keyword search. In this mode, you can select where you want your keywords to appear -- anywhere, in the title, author, subject, series name, etc. Note the drop-down boxes to the right of the search text box. The default is "all of these," but you can also select "any of these" or "as a phrase." You can enter search terms in one or all three text boxes.

Subject Browse
Searching by Subject Browse requires that you enter specific words or phrases, known as Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). These are "official" terms the Library of Congress has developed. Sometimes they are easy to guess, but other times they aren't. For example, LCSH don't use the term "native Americans." The Library of Congress subject heading is Indians of North America. Here are some examples of subject headings:

India--Economic conditions
Child development--United States--Case studies
Indians of North America--Social conditions
Nursing--Cross-cultural studies
Cookery, American--Southwestern style

To do a subject search, select Subject on the Basic Search screen and type in the subject heading.

To find appropriate subject headings, you can do any of the following:

Keyword vs. Subject Searching
Both types of searches have their place and you should get used to searching both ways. Generally, if you can identify an appropriate Library of Congress subject heading, subject searching can be more precise, reducing the need to sort through dozens or even hundreds of titles. On the other hand, if your topic is complex, a keyword search might be better. A good strategy is to do a keyword search, find a relevant title, see what the subject headings are and search on those. For example, if we do a search on "genetically modified foods", we find several subject headings from among the titles retrieved.

Click on these subject heading links will find more books on this topic.

NEXT: Advanced Search Techniques