Subject Searching
Searching by subject is useful for later-stage research that calls for more specifically applicable resources.
Information experts from Library of Congress and other well-known institutions conduct in-depth analysis of published materials to assign “subject” classifications which are used by libraries around the globe. Subject terminology (controlled vocabulary) can be specific and technical – varying from the terms you determined for your research.
Results in the library catalog use the following controlled vocabularies:
The simplest way to identify subjects for searching is to browse the results of a keyword search for applicable resources, then view the record’s “Subjects” list. Each subject listed is a clickable hyperlink leading to a search for all records with that subject classification.
Tip: Search for items matching more than one subject using Boolean Operators (see below) in an advanced search to pinpoint the results you need.
Boolean Operators
George Boole (1815–1864) was a pioneering English mathematician, logician, and philosopher who laid the foundation for modern symbolic logic and Boolean algebra. His work is fundamental to the logic used in search engines today – Boolean Logic.
The three main Boolean Operators used in information searching are AND, OR, and NOT. These terms are used by search engines to connect keywords and construct logical search queries that enable search engines to refine results.
The AND operator is used to narrow results by searching for only records that contain both terms. i.e. Mathematics AND Education
The OR operator is used to broaden results by searching for records that contain at least one of the terms. i.e. Mathematics OR Education
The NOT operator is used to narrow results by searching for records that contain one result but include no mention of the other. i.e. Mathematics NOT Education.
Advanced catalog searching allows the combination of numerous terms using Boolean operators to produce extremely specific search queries. While applying Boolean operators can be very useful in narrowing your search results, it can also be extremely limiting and remove too many results for functional research. Try various combinations of terms until you find the balance of narrow and relevant results.
Note: Operators will be applied in linear order, so “Mathematics AND Education NOT University” will yield different results from “Mathematics NOT University AND Education”.
Other Techniques
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Quotation Marks Placing quotation marks (“”) around multiple terms ensures that the system only searches for records in which those terms appear as a phrase, exactly as they appear within the quotation marks. i.e. “social media algorithms” Tip: Be sure to check your spelling when using quotation marks. |
Truncation Truncation uses an asterisk (*) following a root word or shortened word to search for records that include various derivatives of the word. i.e. psycholog* (psychology, psychologist, psychological, etc.) |
Wildcard Wildcard searching utilizes an asterisk (*) within a word to indicate any number of characters or a question mark (?) to indicate a single character within a word. This is useful for locating various spellings or forms of a word. i.e. behavi*r (behavior, behaviour), wom*n (women, woman) |
