Subject Searching

If you enter your keywords as a subject search, you may not get any results. The Subject search uses special terms to organize books by subject. In our Library Catalog, these are called Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). Other Library Catalogs or periodical databases may use a different list of standardized headings. For example, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's own list of headings for medicine is known as the Medical Subject Headings or Mesh. It is used to catalog books and periodical articles included in health- related databases.

Subject searching is a quick and effective way to retrieve the most relevant items using these standardized terms.

For example, books about "death penalty" would be listed under the subject "capital punishment." Books on "Plastic surgery" would be under "Surgery, Plastic."

Advantages:

  • It provides more manageable and relevant results.
  • All the documents retrieved are about the subject searched.
  • Books or articles with similar topics are grouped together under one subject.

Disadvantages:

  • It is hard to know what LCSH term or other standard headings will be used for a topic.
  • It only searches the subject field.
  • Not all databases use the same subject term.
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