Subject Searching
Subject searching is the most accurate search
in the catalog. Although General Keyword searches all the
fields and gives the most results, it may not yield the results you
are looking for. For example, searching "time travel"
using General Keyword retrieves results about world travel and
Time-Life books, whereas the intention was to find books on
traveling through time. This is when Subject Searching is the
most appropriate search.
All items are given one or more subject
headings in CLICK. Subject headings are assigned
according to the Library of Congress (LC) Subject Classification
System based on
their content. To begin, the best search to
use is Subject Keyword:
The search term "algebra" generates over 150
results. One of the records, as shown below, has three
different subject headings.
By clicking on the subject heading "algebra",
a new search is launched in List of Subjects, as shown below.
Although important, subject headings
are sometimes obscure.
For example, the subject
headings for books dealing with Math problems
have the subject Mathematics
-- Problems, exercises, etc. Therefore, remember
the following tips:
1.
start your search using the Subject Keyword search field
2. if you're performing another type of search,
look at the catalog record to see what subject headings are
used
3.
revise your search using the terms in the subject field or click
on the linked subject heading.
